Waterfront

I am going to try to keep a record in this blog of my reading. I've just finished Waterfront by Phillip Lopate. The book is an informal survey of the history and future prospects of the Manhattan waterfront. I thought it was a worthwhile read, although the author's excursions into his personal history did not feel connected to the narrative or the theme of the work. Nonetheless, there were parts of the book that were illuminating. For instance, Lopate includes an extensive discussion of Westway. I wasn't living in New York when the project was being discussed - and litigated - and I was only vaguely aware of the issues involved. Lopate makes a good case for the proposed tunnel/highway and how it would have improved access to the waterfront. Indeed, the decision to encircle Manhattan with coastal highways has clearly been vitally important for the current status and future of the city's waterfront. Unfortunately, aside from his discussion of Westway, Lopate does not give us much detail as to how or why this occurred.

Lopate also attempts to reassess - favorably - the legacy of Robert Moses. It's an interesting discussion and it made me consider - briefly - reading Caro's biography. But this section - like several others - had the feel of an attempt to be deliberately contrarian.

Finally, I admired Lopate's tribute to New York City's public housing. Public housing is no longer a hot topic politically. Indeed, the current political climate disdains such government intervention in the market. The idea that government - at any level - would build affordable housing on a large scale is not seriously proposed or discussed by any political party. For example, Fernando Ferrer, the leader in most polls for the Democratic nomination for mayor, has advanced a housing policy based on tax incentives and zoning changes to encourage the construction by private developers of affordable housing.

Before I came to New York, I lived in Chicago for nine years. In the 1980s, public housing was a constant news focus in Chicago. Almost all the news was bad. The projects were poorly maintained, riddled by serious crime and delinquency and pervaded by an atmosphere of hopelessness. I was amazed when I arrived in New York and discovered that public housing in this city was not regarded with the same contempt and fear as Chicago. As Lopate notes, New York is unique among major U.S. cities in not having destroyed any of its high rise public housing. Lopate gives several convincing reasons for this. I would add one that Lopate hints at but does not elaborate. The shortage of housing options - particularly affordable ones - has kept working or middle class tenants in the city's public housing projects. In Chicago, working class tenants who became disaffected by public housing often had other options. When I lived in Chicago, I rented a large studio apartment for $400 per month in the early 1990s. When I moved to New York City four years later, I found a rent-stabilized apartment in a neighborhood similar to the one where I had lived in Chicago at four times the Chicago rent. At Chicago rents, even the working poor could afford adequate housing and therefore could, and did, abandon public housing as it began to deteriorate. In New York, a public housing tenant of modest means who is tempted to jump ship faces a housing market now dominated by luxury rentals. As far as I can tell, rent stabilization and rent control are programs which only benefit insiders - those already living in controlled or stabilized buildings. Newcomers must pay market rents which are almost always colossal compared to those in other cities. So the savvy public housing tenant will understand that s/he is giving up one of the best rent stabilization programs still around if s/he leaves public housing. It's little wonder that so few make that choice.