layered spura : guided tour cards

Guided Tour cardsLayered SPURA

These cards are part of the Layered SPURA Guided Tours project, and were made by Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani for the SPURA walking tours on which she guides students and others. In these walks, each participant takes a card - a cue card, really. Doing so, each person takes ownership of a voice from a portion of SPURA history, later reading that voice aloud on the walk. You can also use these cards to take your own walk through SPURA, letting these often conflicting past and present voices come back to you as you move through the space.

Learn more : Buscada.com

LAYERED SPURASTREETLIFE

LAYERED SPURASPURA MATTERS

“It was all tenements, but they had a lot of little storefronts. ...There was Hershey, who had a comic book store. ...two bodegas...Spanish grocery stores. There was the German butcher. There was a place called Clinton Plaza... a Jewish catering hall. On the weekends they would have these incredible parties, like birthdays and bar mitzvahs... weddings, and they would hire the kids from the neighborhood...”- Former SPURA resident

Broome Street & Baruch Place, demolished by urban renewal (Charles W. Cushman, 1941)

“While the most popular seems to be creating housing for working-class and moderate-income households, many people favor mixed-income housing on the site. In addition to residential development, space for community activities and businesses is also desired. ...people want to see development generate jobs for local residents.” - SPURA Matters report, 2009

“Community Voices” by the Pratt Center for Community Development & SPURA Matters



LAYERED SPURALOMEX

“Every delay gives added hope to those who indulge themselves in partisan politics and who make municipal progress a dirty word.” - William Gottlieb, Automobile Club of NY

“Except for one old man, I’ve been unable to find anyone of technical competence who is for this so-called expressway... But I think it is time for this stubborn old man to realize that too many of his dreams turn out to be nightmares for the city...”- Assemblyman Louis DeSalvio

LOMEX would have cut through SPURA.


“At least 800 and preferably more than 1,000 housing units must be provided.”

- 50% of all units should be available at market-rate values - 10% of all units for middle-income households ($100,000 - $130,000)- 10% of all units for moderate-income households ($40,000 - $100,000)- 20% of all units for low-income households (< $ 40,000)- 10% of all units for low-income seniors

- CB3 Potential Guidelines on SPURA Redevelopment, January 2011

LAYERED SPURADRAFT PLAN 2011


LAYERED SPURAGRAND ST GUILD

“...Where Rite Aid is, those are the St. Mary’s Guild. The only reason they were built, the only reason we were successful, was because of the mass demonstrations we had, the Join Planning Council, Francis Golden, people like that who fought and fought for years to make sure we had affordable housing there, to make sure we got some justice.”- Former SPURA resident


LAYERED SPURAKAZAN & THE UHF

“Each cooperator feels that he is one of the owners of the development and responsible to the others for the condition of the community.”- Abraham E. Kazan, 1937

A great proponent of urban renewal for labor cooperatives: Founder of the United Housing Foundation and the original, but not eventual sponsor of SPURA, Abraham Kazan, at far left, next to Robert Moses.


LAYERED SPURACOMMUNITY

“It means poor working people struggling to raise their family, and looking after each other, and looking after each other’s kids. Kind of taking care of each other when the need is there. Unfortunately I don’t see that anymore.” - Former SPURA resident

The Rudyk family before they were displaced from SPURA

LAYERED SPURA36 ATTORNEY ST

“These buildings were up for years empty! So after we had moved out and I was 17 years old, I came back and I opened up one of the buildings along with people in the community. 36 Attorney Street. We took the chain down, we opened it up, and we moved people in. People from the neighborhood that were being pushed out. ...we fought the city for about 3 years, and we won... it became a low-income co-op. 36 Attorney Street is still there.” - Former SPURA resident + activist

*



LAYERED SPURABEING DISPLACED

“I remember that it started slowly... on Suffolk Street. They started taking tenants from one building and putting them in another building, closing that building... Over and over, and then it happened to us. ...One week my parents were told, “you get $150 for relocation, you gotta go.” And that was it. Three weeks, you gotta go. And, after we went, the building stayed empty for years before they finally took it down.”- Former SPURA resident

2.5 columns of SPURA displacees in the New York Times.

LAYERED SPURABEING DISPLACED

“People were really upset. Some of the buildings... were really sturdy, strong... Equal buildings that were kept are still standing. So it wasn’t like they needed to be demolished. ....Everybody that lived in the area was told that they could move back. That was part of the deal.”- Former SPURA resident

Lower Clinton Street, later a part of SPURA (Photographed by Charles W. Cushman, 1941)



LAYERED SPURADESIGN FOR RENEWAL

“A challenging concept in design for re-development in urban renewal is proposed... in the Seward Park Extension urban renewal project. The chief objective of this concept is to renew the area physically while maintaining its social, economic and visual continuity with the surrounding community. ... while still serving a broad range of low- and middle-income families.” - SPURA promotional brochure, ca 1955

A promotional drawing of a future SPURA, looking northwest, from the 1955 brochure.


LAYERED SPURAMIXED

“I had a Jewish friend named Louise... and we would go check out the Jewish guys that were playing basketball. ...There were blacks, Puerto Ricans, Jewish, Italian, Chinese, Irish, and in-between there were kids that were Irish and Italian or Irish and Greek. ...I think that was unique to that time. Once the buildings in that area were destroyed, a lot of the people that lived there ...not only Puerto Ricans, a lot of Jewish people just moved away.”- Former SPURA resident


LAYERED SPURAGRAND ST GUILD

“...Where Rite Aid is, those are the St. Mary’s Guild. The only reason they were built, the only reason we were successful, was because of the mass demonstrations we had, the Join Planning Council, Francis Golden, people like that who fought and fought for years to make sure we had affordable housing there, to make sure we got some justice.”- Former SPURA resident


LAYERED SPURAKAZAN & THE UHF

“Each cooperator feels that he is one of the owners of the development and responsible to the others for the condition of the community.”- Abraham E. Kazan, 1937

A great proponent of urban renewal for labor cooperatives: Founder of the United Housing Foundation and the original, but not eventual sponsor of SPURA, Abraham Kazan, at far left, next to Robert Moses.


LAYERED SPURAOtero v. NYCHA, 1973

The charge : “‘the Housing Authority had decided that a majority of the apartments ...should be rented to white families. They could only accomplish this by renting some apartments to non-former-site tenants.”

The settlement : allocating “apartments in the two public housing buildings to families on a basis of 60% Hispanic and other minority and 40% white. 161 former site tenants would get priority. The remaining 197 apartments would be parceled out on the ethnic quota.” - Joint Planning Council records


LAYERED SPURANEW PLANS

“I think that all of it should be affordable housing, because it was the poor people that were displaced. ...But as a realist if that’s the concessions that have to be made to get some affordable housing built, then I’ll gladly make those concessions....I would have no problem with mixed-income. Not luxury. We have enough luxury housing on the Lower East Side.”- Lower East Side resident


LAYERED SPURACOMMUNITY

“It means poor working people struggling to raise their family, and looking after each other, and looking after each other’s kids. Kind of taking care of each other when the need is there. Unfortunately I don’t see that anymore.” - Former SPURA resident

The Rudyk family before they were displaced from SPURA

LAYERED SPURA36 ATTORNEY ST

“These buildings were up for years empty! So after we had moved out and I was 17 years old, I came back and I opened up one of the buildings along with people in the community. 36 Attorney Street. We took the chain down, we opened it up, and we moved people in. People from the neighborhood that were being pushed out. ...we fought the city for about 3 years, and we won... it became a low-income co-op. 36 Attorney Street is still there.” - Former SPURA resident + activist

*



LAYERED SPURASTREETLIFE

LAYERED SPURASPURA MATTERS

“It was all tenements, but they had a lot of little storefronts. ...There was Hershey, who had a comic book store. ...two bodegas...Spanish grocery stores. There was the German butcher. There was a place called Clinton Plaza... a Jewish catering hall. On the weekends they would have these incredible parties, like birthdays and bar mitzvahs... weddings, and they would hire the kids from the neighborhood...”- Former SPURA resident

Broome Street & Baruch Place, demolished by urban renewal (Charles W. Cushman, 1941)

“While the most popular seems to be creating housing for working-class and moderate-income households, many people favor mixed-income housing on the site. In addition to residential development, space for community activities and businesses is also desired. ...people want to see development generate jobs for local residents.” - SPURA Matters report, 2009

“Community Voices” by the Pratt Center for Community Development & SPURA Matters



LAYERED SPURAOtero v. NYCHA, 1973

The charge : “‘the Housing Authority had decided that a majority of the apartments ...should be rented to white families. They could only accomplish this by renting some apartments to non-former-site tenants.”

The settlement : allocating “apartments in the two public housing buildings to families on a basis of 60% Hispanic and other minority and 40% white. 161 former site tenants would get priority. The remaining 197 apartments would be parceled out on the ethnic quota.” - Joint Planning Council records



“I think that all of it should be affordable housing, because it was the poor people that were displaced. ...But as a realist if that’s the concessions that have to be made to get some affordable housing built, then I’ll gladly make those concessions....I would have no problem with mixed-income. Not luxury. We have enough luxury housing on the Lower East Side.”- Lower East Side resident


LAYERED SPURALOMEX

“Every delay gives added hope to those who indulge themselves in partisan politics and who make municipal progress a dirty word.” - William Gottlieb, Automobile Club of NY

“Except for one old man, I’ve been unable to find anyone of technical competence who is for this so-called expressway... But I think it is time for this stubborn old man to realize that too many of his dreams turn out to be nightmares for the city...”- Assemblyman Louis DeSalvio

LOMEX would have cut through SPURA.


“At least 800 and preferably more than 1,000 housing units must be provided.”

- 50% of all units should be available at market-rate values - 10% of all units for middle-income households ($100,000 - $130,000)- 10% of all units for moderate-income households ($40,000 - $100,000)- 20% of all units for low-income households (< $ 40,000)- 10% of all units for low-income seniors

- CB3 Potential Guidelines on SPURA Redevelopment, January 2011

LAYERED SPURADRAFT PLAN 2011



“I think that there’s a need for lower-income housing, there’s really not much left in the city other than some projects and things. I think that’s kind of wrong. I would be in favor of that. But I would be in favor of integrating it into the whole rather than having a section... I think it would be a way to upgrade people’s standard of living in general, and to have lower income-people mixed in with more middle-income. It shouldn’t be different housing, it should just be open to different income levels.” - Lower East Side resident



“Us, we’re in a gentrifying world here, and we don’t want low-income housing, we’ve got more than our share. I think even mixed housing, which is what I favor, is going be a hard sell. But I think it can be done if it’s done the right way. It can’t be done by shoving it down our throats. We’ll just do the same thing again. We’ve done it before.”- Lower East Side resident


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