SOURCE: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/25/nyregion/new-york-city-public-housing-history.html

NYCHA: Exacerbated by Time

Public housing in New York City, run by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), is a system designed to relieve housing-stress on cost-burdened households; those who delegate thirty-percent or more of their annual income on rent. In reality the system of affordable housing has created a mess of problems. NYCHA not only has a history of prejudice, but a blatant apathy towards its clients. Not only has the system created health problems for its residents, but it perpetuates the cycle of poverty. In the New York Times article, “The Rise and Fall of New York Public Housing: An Oral History” Luis Ferrè-Sadurni effectively relays the history of NYC housing policy from the forties until today. Sadurini captivates his audience by being brief, and specific, through the employment of photographs, quotes, and concise context. Sadurni gains credibility from his readers by using quotes from longtime residents of public housing facilities, managers at New York Housing Authority (NYCHA) and historians. The residents bring the hard and fast reality, the employees explain the intention and ability of NYCHA at a given moment, and the historians bring a breadth of knowledge and expertise. He engages the readers emotionally through evocative language bolstered by photographs. This story, Sadurini is saying, is the story of the individual- a personal pain inflicted by the politically apathetic hand. Sadurini however fails to address a few dimensions of the problems of NYCHA. His collage leaves out the details. Residents of the dilapidated housing units suffer insurmountable stress on a day to day basis. Failure to address the current state of deterioration makes necessary repairs accumulate, causing further economic stress on the city.  Sadurni’s article fails to discuss technicalities, leaving his reader without direction. Despite this, his collage of quotes, photographs, captions, and supplementary text conveying context effectively tells the fraught history, capturing his audience with ethos and pathos.

To create an emotional saga, the author begins at the creation of NYCHA in 1934 by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, as a failed expression of noble values. NYCHA was intended to appeal to brewing liberalism, and the desire for equity. Following an evocative photograph of rubble and ruins against New York’s powerful skyscrapers the author describes the building of the projects as a “slum-clearing machine that reshaped the city,”. The picture portrays the exhibition of public housing as destructive while the words speak of a robotic process that brought drastic and unconsidered change. In hoping to appeal to a critical audience, the author uses the vague terminology, “reshape” begging readers to challenge this “emergent shape.” He hopes they ask themselves, whom does this new form serve? Luis Ferrè-Sadurni answers the question in the negative: it does not serve minorities, nor does it serve the most desperate. As New York Times readers are associated with progressive thinking, this idea is likely to unsettle them.

In arguing that historically the policy favored a more middle-class crowd, Sadurni brings primary sources, to legitimize his claims. Reasons for rejecting housing applications included “alcoholism, irregular work history, single motherhood and lack of furniture”; reasons which would be considered morally reprehensible by the progressive movement of today. He sandwiches this note between two photos. Above, an image of well-dressed white woman, waiting in line in 1947 at NYCHA’s office. “When my mother came,” quotes a longtime resident at the Queensbridge houses, “only white people lived here.” Followed by the second photo of a prim white girl drying dishes with her smiling white mother. Luis Fèrre-Sadurni communicating racism’s cyclical nature; racism as an inheritance from parent to child. This is also effective because housing is a family issue as much as an individual issue.  Continuing the motif of family, Sadurni illustrates the shift away from blatant discriminations in the seventies. He employs a vignette of four smaller photos of both black and white families, of a single woman, mother and daughter, cat grandma and child, and a family. Each of these photos has sufficient lighting, an instrumental element to a nice home.  Each of these homes looks furnished. In this moment he is painting a happy picture, as the seventies where the glory days of public housing, the author pines to resurrect.

In order to emphasize this short-lived utopic execution of housing, Luis Ferrè-Sadurni creates an emotional juxtaposition of the seventies against its downfall at the end of the eighties. In broadly addressing housing, often poorer families are condemned to unsafe neighborhoods. Ironically, New York City housing thrived in the seventies despite the fiscal-crisis and crumbling condition of the broader city; during the chaotic times, housing was almost like a sanctuary. NYCHA employed a special unit of police to maintain safety on sites. Additionally, in the spirit of appreciation and gratitude many of NYCHA’s residents volunteered to patrol. Furthering the relationship between youth and home, Sadurni selected an image of young black volunteer patrollers, empowered by their ability to contribute. NYCHA’s manager at the time recalls, “If a problem came along there was enough money [to fix it],” quoted by Sadurni. Despite the fact that New York was suffering financially, they felt a budget for housing necessary and maintained funding. The thriving NYCHA of the seventies and eighties was overshadowed at the onset of the nineties, during the crack epidemic. This is confirmed by the author of The Last Neighborhood Cops, Gregory Umbach. “As New York falls apart in the nineteen seventies…the housing authority’s projects were anchors of stability and safety…The nineteen eighties is the first time when you’re more at risk of criminal violence on NYCHA property than you are in your surrounding neighborhood.” It is between these two eras that Sadurni poses the four-photo vignette discussed above, of happy families in warm homes. Sadurni incorporates a vivid description by a resident of the projects in Brooklyn to impress upon the reader the severity of the circumstance. L.B. Tillman describes the constant insecurity as follows, “…fights everyday, shootouts everyday…” And Jenkins a resident in Harlem echoes, “Every place you step, you would step on a crack bottle…they [crack bottles] [would] get stuck in the groove of your shoe.” Suddenly the reader realizes that the idyllic utopia of public housing was fleeting blip, a cause quickly forsaken.

Sadurni shows that deteriorating conditions of NYCHA cause a deterioration of the quality-of-life of its residents. The author personifies NYCHA as a “victim” of neglect. A person’s home reflects their state of being. In this description, Sadurni is not only explaining a condition of an apartment, but a condition of an incubator, which defines a person’s experience. NYCHA succumbs to the accumulating debt of the city which is further exacerbated by Hurricane Sandy in twenty-twelve. In images of cracked paint, of filthy, crowded apartments, of a room heated by just a stove and a child huddled beneath a not-so-warm blanket, Sadurni is translating policy as reality as it impacts the individual. Readers of the New York Times are assumed to be wealthy enough to pay for the subscription; are assumed be able to afford a sufficient blanket. Here, Sadurni is exposing his audience to a lifestyle they would not tolerate and further emphasizing the individual as the helpless “loser” to circumstance.  “These building have more than your normal wear and tear.” “They stopped doing preventative maintenance,” admits Gregory Floyd, a representative of NYCHA employees. In choosing to personify NYCHA, Sadurni is articulating the significance of “home.” Home is supposed to be an incubator for a family and a safe haven for the individual.

Sadurni uses of chronology to emphasize a counterintuitive lack of development through time. Until describing the twentieth-first century, the photos Sadurni uses are all black and white, archives from issues of The New York Times, ages old, giving the “olden-day” feel. Suddenly, when he begins discussing the two-thousands, things are real, pain is colored tangible, not a dream and no longer a memory.In color he builds up the expectation of prosperity, in color he unhinges the expectation. NYCHA is still under funded, it is in dire need of renovation but forgotten by the apathy of politicians, for those with the progressive values but none of the passion. Luis Ferrè-Sadurni wants to stir the passion he wants to reinvigorate his audience of progressives towards their neglected values. He is not seeking to make an intellectual argument, nor does he offer a deep analysis of the why’s and how’s that destroyed NYCHA rather he speaks of the impact. His article is an analysis of the “so-what”. He brings this article in full circle, showing the cycle of suffering, and the apathy towards the “unstable home”. He began graphically describing the homes as concentrated in their faults, “No heat. Leaking roofs. Mold and pests. Interminable waits for basic repair.” These are the inhuman conditions who’s impact he shows in imagery, and quoted experience at the end. A grandmother “…used an open oven to heat the apartment she shares with her grandson Michael this winter.” He ends by a quote from Tino Hernandez, the Chairman at NYCHA, “I’m heartbroken because this is an important resource for poor people in New York City.” But is unclear whether Sadurni is merely quoting, or if he is condemning the passivity of those with the power to advocate change.

Luis Ferrè-Sadurni’s article, “The Rise and Fall of New York Public Housing: An Oral History” discusses problems but offers no solution. It is clear that Sadurni values public housing- it is clear that he values people- it is clear that he is antidiscrimination and it is clear that he knows the history he is reporting on. He is successful I gaining emotional backing of his readers, but gives readers no way to channel these feelings. It is unclear what he wants from his readers, who are likely an intelligent, informed and openminded. They are New Yorkers and they want the best for their city, and they want it to stay colorful. Yet, he raises awareness with no inkling of solution. They are left wondering what steps must be taken to equip NYCHA with more funding. Sadurni’s tone is critical but not precise. In the greater discussion of affordable housing, Jenny Schutz, a scholar of economics, points to zoning as a contemporary issue with racial implications. the worst neighborhoods and ultimately resulting in other forms of housing stress beyond living condition and affordability. These include commute distance, quality of education, safety etc. She also discusses that housing, unlike food and health insurance isn’t a default provision guaranteed to all U.S. citizens.  It can be inferred that Sadurni also thinks housing should be a universal right, yet he fails to articulate this, or to even graze this broader debate. Furthermore, at the beginning of his article, Sadurni touches upon the selectivity of affordable housing in NYC but fails to explain its evolution through time.  Though these technicalities were not the focus of Sadurni’s tone, and his tone was more informative than a plea for political action, it would have been helpful for him to guide his readers to more resources, perhaps through the use of hyperlinks. Passion without action is futile.

Sadurni builds a perception of New York City’s public housing as the “anti-home.” In curating vivid photographs depicting the circumstance, he brings his readers into the story. Readers believe him because he speaks not through his own voice, but through the voices of those who are “in-it”; he merely acts as a narrator tying the story together. These quotes and photographs act as evidence that can hold itself up making the article, “The Rise and Fall of New York Public Housing: An Oral History” tenable. He employs intentional language to further his points from the very beginning. He even queues his readers into the ultimate disaster in his title through the words, “rise and fall.” Sadurni’s article is a convincing piece of rhetoric which utilizes a critical tone to inform thoughtful readers, and holding up to their standards in its employment of ethos and pathos. The collaged quality of his article creates a rigorous body of work that tells a difficult story in a compelling way. Sadurni’s readers are left painfully aware of failing policy yet powerless without sufficient knowledge to forge a solution.

Works Cited

Connolly, Brian J. “Promise unfulfilled? Zoning, disparate impact, and affirmatively furthering    fair housing.” The Urban Lawyer, vol. 48, no. 4, Fall 2016, p. 785+. Gale General       OneFile,https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A489987547/ITOF?u=cuny_ccny&sid=ITOF&xi   d=87b57d08. Accessed 24 Apr. 2020.

Ferre-Sadurni, Luis. “The Rise and Fall of New York Public Housing: An Oral History.” The New York Times, 26 June 2018, www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/25/nyregion/new-york-city-public-housing-history.html.‌

Goldberg, Dan. “The Long-Term Health Consequences of Living at NYCHA.” Politico PRO, 9 Apr. 2018, www.politico.com/states/new-york/albany/story/2018/04/06/the-long-term-health-consequences-of-living-at-nycha-352931.

Schuetz, Jenny. “Cost, Crowding, or Commuting? Housing Stress on the Middle Class.” Brookings, 7 May 2019, www.brookings.edu/research/cost-crowding-or-commuting-housing-stress-on-the-middle-class/.

Yglesias, Matthew. “An Expert’s 7 Principles for Solving America’s Housing Crisis.” Vox, 17 May 2019, www.vox.com/2019/5/17/18628267/jenny-schuetz-weeds-interview. Accessed 24 Apr. 2020.

Warren, Katherine. In Brownsville, a Struggle for Revitalization Without Displacement, 2017,      pp. The Graduate School of Journalism, CUNY, Capstones.