City Limits Magazine, March 1986 Issue

2 CITY LIMITS March 1986
CITY UMITS
Volume XI Number 3
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ment groups, developing and advocating pro-
grams for low and moderate income housing
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ment policy and performance.
Urban Homesteoding Assistance Boord, a
technical assistance organization providing
assistance to low income tenant cooperatives
in management and sweat equity rehabilitation.
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EDITORIAL
Discrimination is Sacrilege
"First people need housing. Then you can debate issues like abortion
and gay rights," a community activist remarked to me recently, We started
out discussing the Archdiocese of New York's housing initiatives in the
city. Housing, it seems, has captured the attention and energy of the
city's Catholic leader, Cardinal John O'Connor, certainly a welcome
focus. O'Connor has begun to champion the cause of homeless people
and affordable housing, although scarcely with the vigor and fervor with
which he has taken on such social issues as a woman's right to abortion.
Working with others in the Catholic community, O'Connor is reportedly
readying a proposal to create new homes in the Bronx in a development
styled on the Nehemiah houses in Brooklyn's East New York. With proper
planning and community participation, this could be an important under-
taking,
But the Cardinal's good intentions in one area are being marred by
some very impure thoughts and actions in another, Currently O'Connor
is crusading overtime against a bill before the City Council that would
ban discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations
on the basis of sexual orientation. Not an outrageously new idea-the
bill has been introduced 15 years in a row. Nor is it an incredibly radical
concept: local, state and federal civil rights statutes make discrimination
in housing and jobs on the basis of race and gender illegal.
The supreme logic and justice of the anti-discrimination measure holds
no power over O'Connor who, after all, must answer to a higher authority.
He has been expending vast quantities of energy and time lobbying politi-
cians and clergy alike-some would call it arm-twisting-to assure
enough votes in the City Council to demolish the bill one more time.
Yet to fight for people's right to shelter and ignore the rights of a group
over ten percent of the city's population is not only illogical, it's divisive.
In the current housing crisis, tales of landlord harassment and abuse
abound. To evict, shift around, manipulate and intimidate tenants for
possible profits, developers, realtors and property owners have used
tactics that range from arson to racism. Why leave even one tool in their
arsenal of anti-tenant weapons when the means are at hand to prevent
such discrimination? Especially now when Acquired Immune Deficiency
Syndrome (AIDS) has people running scared and confused over issues
of sexual preference, an affirmative stance on fair housing for homosex-
uals is vitally important.
A few scattered reports have filtered in to City Limits, reports of an
increasing sense of fear and vulnerability among homosexuals who are
renters, The threat of being ostracized, labeled undesirables in an atmos-
phere of homophobia and AIDS panic is all too real for people living in
apartment buildings where personal lives often become public property,
Instead of putting so much destructive energy into defeating a measure
that affirms housing as a right, the Archdiocese should be turning its
sights to more constructive things, said my activist friend. She noted
that, "the Roman Catholic church has the resources and organization to
see that every homeless person in the city gets shelter," Now that's a
mission worth twisting arms for.O A.F.
INSIDE
FEATURES
No Safe Place: Battered Women
in Homelessness 16
Women who break away from physical abuse at
home may find themselves in dire straits in the city's
homeless shelters.
The Company of Women
22
Women's residences are a dying breed in New York
City with a history that goes back to the turn of the
century.
DEPARTMENTS
From the Editor
Discrimination is Sacrilege .............. 2
Letters ............. ..................... 4
Short Term Notes
Housing the Homeport .. -. .. .. ... .... ... 5
Appointee Annointed .................. 5
Living Protest . .. .. ... ..... . . ... ..... .. 6
SRO Study Questioned ................. 6
Homesteaders Demand Amnesty . . .. ..... 7
Neighborhood Notes
Bronx ............... .... ..... ..... .. 8
Brooklyn .. _ ........ , .. , ... .... ... .... 8
Manhattan ......... .... . .. ... . . . ....... 9
Queens ... . ...... ...... , .... . .. .. .... 9
People
Senator Velmanette Montgomery: Putting
Her Politics to Work for Brooklyn . . .. . . .. 10
Pipeline
Ready to Learn, Ready to Work . . . . . . . . .. 3
Cornell Cooperative Extension
Repairing Walls .. .... . .. . .. . .. . . .. ... 15
Resource Readings ....................... 27
Review
Catching Up to the Present ... ..... .. .. . 28
ResourceslEvents ......................... 29
Workshop . .... .. . . .... ..... . ...... .. . ... 31
March 1986 CITY LIMITS 3
Senator/Page 10
Ready to Learn/Page 13
="",..-.,...------.
LETTERS
Graffiti is Blight
Dear City Limits:
My pleasure at seeing an anti-graf-
fiti letter in your February issue was
considerably diminished by the pain
caused me by a pro-graffiti book re-
view contained in the same issue
("Reflections on the Urban Art
Scene"). I feel that graffiti is the worst
aesthetic blight in New York City. It
is worse than litter. Litter, at least, is
eventually removed. Graffiti, how-
ever, often remains, a constant and
ugly reminder of how shabby so
much of New York has become and
how steep New York's fall from grace
has been in the past two decades.
Graffiti vandals destroy what is beau-
tiful and what has been repaired.
Perhaps the most unforgivable thing
graffiti vandals have done is the dam- .
age they have wrought to our once
beautiful parks system. Nothing is sa-
cred to these vandals. Graffiti is tt\)
art what mugging is to work. It is
about time that graffiti vandals (mo-
rons with spray cans) were recog-
nized and denounced for what they
are-vicious, destructive enemies of
our city.
Joel Spielman
Manhattan
A8um Rap
Dear City Limits:
In regards to the letters from' Mr.
Gilbert and Mr. Horowitz in the Feb-
niary 1986 issue that criticize your
December story on rap music, it is
plain to see: these people didn't read
your insightful article about the
Queens musicians when they wrote
their letters, have never listened to
rap music at any time of their lives,
need to learn more about youth's
problems in "safe, clean civilized
cities" that offer poor education and
no opportunities and should realize
that riots occur at rock concerts and
sports events even when blacks are
not around!
Stereotyping and narrow-minded-
ness "have a very negative impact on
the quality of life in our city ... what
you do not wish yourself to be sub-
jected to please don't ask the rest of
us to endure" to borrow from
Horowitz.
I also think City Limits is the most
well-written magazine about New
York. Keep up the good work.
Bernard Moore
Youth Organizer,
Washington Heights-Inwood Coali-
tion
Manhattan
More Housing Info
Dear City Limits:
Your article about how tenants can
find out about the owner of their
building neglected to mention that
ownership information for multiple
dwellings must be filed with the De-
partment of Housing Preservation
and Development (HPD) Borough
Code Enforcement Onices.
Within five days of acquiring title,
a new owner is required to register
business and home addresses. A cor-
porate owner also must provide the
names, residences and business ad-
dresses of its officers. The law
explicitly requires this registration
even if the deed is not recorded.
This is public information obtaina-,
ble from the Borough Code Enforce-
ment Office. To secure this informa-
tion, HPD requests that tenants write
to the Registration Section, Division
of Code Enforcement in their borough
asking for the name and address of
the registered owner and managing
agent and that they enclose a self-ad-
dressed postcard or envelope for
HPD's response.
Recorded deeds produce the cur-
rent owner of record, i.e. the last .
owner whose deed was filed, but
there is no legal requirement for a
owner to file a deed. To file a deed
for a multiple dwelling, the owner
must first show he has filed a registra-
tion statement with DEC or do so
simultaneously.
To complicate matters further
there is a requirement that on transfer
of properties that a tax form be filed
with the Finance Department show-
ing both the ~ n t o r and grantee, both
of whom must sign. As with many
tax matters this is not public informa-
tion.
Bruce Gould
Executive Director,
HPD Office of Program &
Management Analysis
Manhattan .
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SHORT TERM NOTES
HOUSING .THE'
HOMEPORT
Almost one third of Ronald
Reagan's proposed budget is
targeted for military purposes-
to build expensive weapon
systems and to maintain military
personneL In New York City, the '
militarization of our economy is
becoming especially graphic, I
While local and federal I
officials press ahead with plans
to establish a homeport on
Staten Island for battleships
which may be carrying nuclear
weapons, local residents
continue to suffer from public
service cutbacks, lack of decent
jobs and a desperate shortage
of affordable housing. But the
Navy is planning to build
housing for 2,000 to 3,000
people in Staten Island and
Brooklyn with financial aid from
the city. These units would house
the families of military personnel
stationed at the proposed
homeport.
Members of the Coalition for
a Nuclear Free Harbor(CNFH)
reviewed the Navy's Draft
Supplement Evironmental
Impact Statement and helped
organize people to testify at a
series of City Council hearings
held in late January, Speakers
from CNFN pointed outthatthe
plans call for the Navy's housing
to qualify for 421 (a) or 421 (b)
tax abatements for a period of
11 to 1 6 years. Councilmember
Ruth Messinger testified that this
kind of tax abatement would
cost the city $1 5 million in lost
revenues.
Another opponent of the
homeport, Councilmember
Miriam Friedlander, declared at
the hearings, "They say it's
going to give us economic
benefits, but in reality it's going
to cost us, The danger of nuclear
missiles far outweighs any small
benefits it could give us."
Congressman Ted Weiss
questioned the Navy's integrity.
He noted that the Navy had
assured people it would locate
the homeport where there is
adequate affordable housing
and yet officials chose New
York City, which is facing one of
Valentines Day celebration:
The Valentines Day Committee for Housing Justice brought their message to
City Hall and HPD's Gold St, oHices, calling for support of homesteaders and
squatters, and end to warehousing of vacant apartments and transfer of city
properties to the communities that need them.
the most serious housing
shortages in the country.
Members of the Coalition
and other organizations also
pointed out atthe hearings that
there are no plans to involve
local groups in the planning of
proposed Navy housing.
Ultimately, the Coalition and
others are pressing a basic
question: Why should civilians
suffer in crowded, over-priced,
inadequate housing while being
forced to subsidize new, low
cost housing for the military?O
Terri Suess
SRO STUDY
QUESTIONED
A study authorized by the city
has put forth a number of
recommendations for saving
single-room-occupancy
housing for low income New
Yorkers. But Sara Lee Evans,
director of West Side SRO Legal
Services, fears that many
current SRO residents may lose
their homes if the recommenda-
tions are followed, 'We are
most concerned about tenant
protection," states Evans.
The key proposals in the
study, "Single Room Occupancy
in New York City," released in
February, include a buy-out
program, transfer of ownership
to nonprofit agnecies and the
enactment of anti-warehou'sing
legislation for SROs. The
buy-out program would allow
owners to resume converting
SRO buildings into luxury
apartments when the current
moratorium expires in July, as
long as they make a contribu-
tion - either cash or actual
units-towards the creation of
SROs somewhere else. For
transferring the ownership of
their SROs to nonprofit
agencies, owners would receive
"marketable development
rights or zoning and tax
benefits" for other properties,
according to the report. Allan
Kleinman, acting director of the
Mayors Office of SRO
Housing, expects that the SRO
anti-warehousing legislation
currently before the City Council
will be amended to extend past
the July moratorium.
All three of these recommen-
dations are primarily concerned
with SRO units in what the study
calls "the market area," but
never actually defines, It is
believed that the market area
refers to Manhattan south of
96th Street, where most SROs
are and the most intense
...
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iii
SHORT TERM NOTES
Shantytown residents Carlos Cruz (I.) and Mike Cruzado:
"They want us to 'eave but here we will stay."
development activity is taking
place.Most of the study's other
recommendations deal with
SROs outside of that area.
The city spent $97,500 to
.hgve Urban Systems Research
& Engineering, Inc., conduct the
independent study. But Evans
. questions the "independence"
ofthe report. "1 recall conversa- I
tions with Housing Preservation
and Development and otller
city administrators where many
of the same recommendations I
were proposed." Kleinman
doesn't deny that the consultants
worked "closely" with the city.
Evans also feels thatthe study
fell far short of its requirement
to evaluate current SRO
conditions. The consultants
initially intended to interview
750 SRO tenants but in fact
interviewed just 200. Urban
Systems says they will now
interview an additional 300.
Evans terms this an "inadequate
sampling base." The study's
. review of SRO-owners'
finances, based on a mail
questionnaire, was also
inadequate Evans says. "It's
inconceivable that many
landlords we have dealt with
would answer, or if they did
would answer accurately."
While Evans believes "the
study by itself is not going to get
us anything," she feels it does
have "possibilities for positive
results." At the very least, she
says, it's getting city officials to
discuss the importance of SRO
housing and the potential for
operating them under the
auspicies of nonprofit agencies.
Still, she is concerned about
how the buy-out program and
transfer of ownership to
nonprofits would effect
residents currently in those
buildings. "The method for
rehousing people seems to be
vague," she cautions.
Kleinman thinks the study's
recommendations offer the best
chances for preserving SROs
for those who need them most.
going to live? I've lived on the
lower East Side all of my life,
I'm not going to be pushed out."
Torres and co-plaintiff David
Jacobs are challenging the city's
eviction proceedings in court.
Their case is being handled
by Randolph Scott-Mclaughlin
of the Center for Constitutional
Rights, who claims the shan-
tytown is a symbolic protest of
the severe housing crisis and the
city's failure to "address the
needs of the homeless." Jack
lester, a co-counsel, comments
that the shantytown is an
embarrassment to city officials.
''The city wants to evict and
silence them." Scott-Mclaughlin
charges in his court briefthatthe
city is trying to deny his clients
their First Ammendment right of
free speech, which includes such
actions as sit-ins and other forms
of protest.
! Diane Morgenroth, a lawyer
~ for the city's Corporation
:I: Counsel, argues in papers she
filed with the State Supreme
__ .. 1:1: Courtthatthe shantytown is not
He says the mayor will soon
present legislation to both the
city and state based on these
recommendations.D D. T.
LIVING
PROTEST
During the first days of
February, the snow seemed to
fall continually. The winter wind
swirled across the lot on 6th St.
between Avenues C and D,
knifing through the nine shacks.
The people huddled around
their makeshift stoves to keep
warm. If you think this sounds
like a Depression-era story,
you're right. But this is a
shantytown 1 986-style, in the
midst of the rapidly gentrifying
lower East Side.
The city wants the shantytown
residents evicted from the
city-owned lot. But Delia Torres,
one of the residents, asks,
. "Where are the poor people
a protest but simply a group of
squatters. She claims that the
city is adequately dealing with
the homeless problem by
supplying shelter for some
7,500 people. (Advocates for
the homeless estimate that the
homeless population numbers
over 50,000). Morgenroth also
says the shantys are in violation
of city building codes and their
stoves are endangering nearby
buildings.
There are eight adults living
"permanently" in the shan-
tytown, with others who come
and go. All of them have been
priced out of apartments in the
neighborhood. Delia Torres
says she and her husband
Michael could no longer afford
their $655 a month apartment
after he lost his job and her
hours as an assistant teacher
were cut back. They don't see
the city's shelters as an option.
Says Michael Torres, "The
shelters are unsafe. I feel safer
in the lot."
Reactions to the shantytown
by neighborhood people are
mixed. Many are very
sympathetic but others want
them out. 'We get bombarded
by bricks. Sometimes people
stand outside the fence and
think it's a zoo," admits Delia
Torres. But Torres and the others
have a strong feeling for the
R80ple of the neighborhood.
Each night they prepare more
food than they need and give
the extra away, especially to the
elderly.
Judge Francis N. Pecora is
now considering Scott-
Mclaughlin's request for an
evidentiary hearing. Declares
Scott-McLaughlin, "I don't want
the wheels of the city to grind
over my clients."DD. T.
HOMESTEADERS
DEMAND
AMNESTY
"Amnesty" has become the
battle cry of New York City
homesteaders who are fighting
their eviction on constitutional I0Il ___ _
grounds. The 23 low income Joy and Will Sale., tenants at 278 E. 7th St.:
f I
They say homesteaders, the city says squatters.
ami ies who are homesteading
at 278 East 7th St., and citywide
groups supporting them, are
asking city officials to give
amnesty to all existing home-
steoding groups.
The East 7th St. tenants, who
received pre-Christmas eviction
notices from the Department of
Housing Preservation and
Development(HPD), are
challenging that action on the
basis of racial discrimination.
The primarily black, Hispanic
and Asian tenants say the city
wants to develop the site for
high income whites.
Represented by lawyers from
the Center for Constitutional
Rights, the East 7th St. home-
steaders' novel defense-
which may set the stage for a
major test case in the city - has
piqued the interest of many
other housing groups. There are
two similar buildings adjacentto
this one, and tenants in those
buildings fear that they will be
the next to receive eviction
notices. HPD, which is negotiat-
ing with the community over the
disposition of city-owned
property in the Lower East Side,
has indicated that it wants to sell
contiguous lots to developers,
according to Board 3 chair AI
Marston. Recently, apartments
in that area, which is baunded
by Avenues C and 0, have
rented for as much as $1,200
per month.
According to Donna
Cornachio, a spokeswomon at
HPD, most of the tenants in the
city-owned building are illegal '
squatters, and "the city has a
very strong anti-squatter
policy." She also said the
building is unsafe and must be
vacated before HPD con make
repairs on it.
But tenant spokesman Will
Sales said tenants sought - and
were denied -legal home-
steading status. Tenants in the
six-story building have been
paying a small monthly fee for
overall repairs, renovating their
own apartments and agreed to
spend 40 hours per month
working on the building. They
also chip in for major repairs,
. like the recent replacement of
the entire plumbing system.
The East 7th St. residents joined
with other homesteading
groups and housing advocacy
organizations in pressuring city
officials for amnesty f ~ r all
people currently restoring
city-owned buildings. They are
also pressing HPD to stop selling
city-owned buildings to private
developers.D Bev Cheuvront
HOUSING
ADVISOR
ANNOINTED
Mayor Edward Koch has
appointed Abraham Biderman
to the post of Special Advisor to
the Mayor for Housing
Coordination and Develop-
ment. Biderman, who is already
a close advisor to Koch (at a
salary of $82,500 annually) will
work with the private sector and
city agencies developing new
housing programs for moderate
and middle income New
Yorkers.
"Getting housing back so that
the private sector involvement,
rather than government, is
something that's crucial, that's
how it's gotto work in the long
run," explains Biderman. "I want
to use the city's self-interest and
capitalize on developers'
self-interest to help motivate
,them to build housing afford-
able to middle income people."
The mayor says his plan looks
to cater to co-op and con-
dominium development at what
he called "the low end of the
income scale," an income range
of $15,000 to $48,000 a yeor.
Housing Commissioner
Anthony Gliedman estimates
thot if successful, the city's role
in such a projedwill involve 20
to 25 percent of the cost. None
of the proposed development,
however, will take place below
96th Street.
Heoding up Biderman's
agenda is a review, with HPD,
of leading developers'
respanses to a letter sent by the
mayor on December 24, 1985.
In that letter, the mayor asked
developers to identify the "laws,
'pradices, zoning ordinances,
tax policies or exemptions" that
would have to be changed to
enable large scale middle
income housing to go forward.
Bonnie Brower, executive
diredor of the Association for
Neighborhood Housing and
Development, predicts the
mayor's plan will come up far
short of its stated goal. "It's a \
sham to pretend that the private
sedor can meet the housing
needs of people earning $15,
$18, even $20,000 per yeor.
Because of this it sounds like yet
another Koch administration
program to redistribute scarce
public resources for housing
from low and moderate income
people who really need it to
upper income people whom the
private sedor can serve."
Brower adds, "It's redistribution
from the needy to the greedy."
The Koch administration
argues that the federal tax code
strongly favors private
ownership, and that Biderman's
mission, if successful, should
allow even city residents with
moderate incomes the ability to
spend 40 percent or more of
their earnings for housing if they
own their own homes and take
advantage of tax deductions.
In this venture, Koch says,
"Abe will go into the private
sedor as my emissary. You can
tolk to him as you would talk to
me."DAndy Lanset
The Bronx
Whither the Homeless?
"Be it ever so humble, there's no
place like home," but how much
humility can one borough take to
make the housing shortage a little less
visible in its neighborhoods?
There are three shelters for the
Bronx homeless operated by the
Human Resources Administration:
the Kingsbridge Armory in the north,
and the Franklin and Willow Av-
enues shelters in the south. But a
frightening sign of things to come sur-
faced in an illegal shelter on Tremont
Avenue.
First in the north. Two years ago
there were several hundred single
homeless men at the Kingsbridge Ar-
mory. Situated in the northwest near
Lehman College and Fordham Uni-
versity, the Armory closed its shelter-
ing program under intense commu-
nity and political pressure. Then, the
problem moved south.
Without community consultation,
an armory on Franklin A venue in
housing-poor Morrisania became the
new shelter for these same men-
and a couple more. After promising
to limit occupancy to 200 to win com-
munity approval, the Armory ad-
ministrators have escalated the occu-
pancy by 300 percent to 600 daily
residents. No social services compo-
nent is included, security is poor and
neighbors complain of harassment
and assaults by residents roaming the
streets. Public meetings have been
held by local churches, Community
Board 3 representatives and politi-
cians to raise these issues. To date,
there has been no significant change
in support 9.r security services.
Now the Kingsbridge Armory is
back in business. Fifty residents met
on February 5 at Community Board
7 with Charles D' Arcy of HRA to out-
line a plan that will make the shelter
work. They proposed monitoring and
support services, limiting occupants
to present number, a community em-
ployment program, on-site social ser-
vices and a joint security monitoring
program to include police, shelter ad-
ministrators and a community ad-
visors.
Just as the Kingsbridge meeting
was taking place, ten more families
were looking for that humble no-
place called home. Residents at 861
Tremont Ave. were just waking up as
fire trucks came to their rescue. The
second floor, 4,000-square-foot loft
where they were living was iden-
tified by the Buildings Department as
an illegal single-room-occupancy
hotel for 60 people including recent
immigrants from Puerto Rico. It's
owned by Harry Fotopoulos who
leased the loft to the Harlem Block
Council at a reported cost of $3,000
a month. Gwen Garnett, council di-
rector, charged rents up to $1,680 per
family for the past three months. The
HRA is being shamed by the publicity
on the incident generated by Roberto
Ramirez, leader of the Progressive
Activists for Latino Advancement
(PALA) . Because of Ramirez' efforts
and the incident, an HRA investiga-
tion is under way. While fire officials
suspect arson, other suspicions are
being raised: are there more Bronx
firetraps paid for by HRA to hide, er,
house the homeless?D Angel Garcia
Brooklyn
Business as Usual in Brooklyn
Borough Presidents are keeping
low profiles these days. They are all
worried, it seems, about bringing
scandal down upon themselves.
But that doesn't mean that business
as usual is not continuing. Brooklyn's
Howard Golden is working hard to
raise campaign funds though the pri-
mary was last September and he faced
no serious challenge. Since then he
has raised almost $300,000 for his
campaign.
His most recent report) filed in Jan-
uary, shows that he has made the mil-
lionaire club. Major contributions
since the primary include $4,000
from the Tufoand Zuccotti law firm,
$1,500 from Cablevision, one of the
companies that split lucrative B r o o k ~
lyn cable television contract, $5,000
from companies affiliated to de-
veloper Donald Trump, $5,000 from
local developer Louis Greco and
$15,000 from Gerald Gutterman who
is selling occupied apartments in
Queens. Call it insurance that Brook-
lyn continues to be a nice place in
which to do business.o Robert
Neuwirth
Terminal Case
The best thing to happen to Brook-
lyn since the bridge or welfare for the
rich? What ever it is, the Atlantic.Ter-
minal Redevelopment Plan is
generating heat in Fort Greene
Community support for the ambiti-
ous development of office towers, a
movie multiplex and condominium
housing has been visible from the
start. The New Fort Greene Commit-
tee coalesced five months ago to pro-
mote the plan. "We organized to
show the complex in a good light,"
says Leon Golomb of the Committee.
"If it's a successful project, it will
make people think Brooklyn is the
place to come."
Other vocal supporters of the Ter-
minal plan include City Council-
member Mary Pinkett and George
Knight, Pastor of the Lafayette Av-
enue Presbyterian Church. Knight
sent a strongly worded letter to mem-
bers of Planning Board 2 January 8
urging "the Board to lend the power
of its personnel, prestige and past
performances to advance the rede-
velopment." The pastor reminds
them that 25 years ago, the city prop-
osed to move Baruch College to the
Atlantic Terminal Area, which is an
urban renewal site. But instead, "here
we are ... with a vast 'wasteland' unde-
veloped, unproductive and now fac-
ing the possibility of another quarter
century or more if re-development is
stalled or forced out by a minority of
the Community who have chosen
this 'cause' at this time."
Opposition to the plan seems far
less potent or visible than the volume
of the proponents' dismissal of it
.-
would suggest. No local community
organization has taken a hard line
position against the project, although
some have spoken against it off the
record. The Downtown Brooklyn
Tenants Federation put out a fact
sheet detailing the plan, which they
termed "welfare for the rich" and list-
ing concerns for displacement, lack
of low income housing and jobs that
will go to commuters, not locals. To
date, the yea-sayers appear to have
the momentum but the last chapter
of the Terminal saga is nowhere near
completion.D Annette Fuentes
Manhattan
Longacre Woes
The latest change to rattle residents
of the formerly all-women's Longacre
Hotel on W. 45 St.: owners opened a
gym in the basement and have taken
over the 7th and 8th floors for a youth
hostel. .
According to Shirley Peck,
longtime-resident and witness to
harassment tactics employed by the
owners, "residents have not been in-
vited to be members" of the men-only
facility. The Longacre has been
gradually transformed by owners
since they purchased it in October,
1983 (see "A Women's Residence
Fights to Stay that Way," City Limits,
Dec. 1984.) The single-roam-occu-
pancy hotel, once home to over 150
women, now has half that population
and severely reduced services, de-
creased repairs and lack of security
the women depended on.
The women note that the construc-
tion work was conducted in spite of
the city's current moratorium freez-
ing such conversions in SRO hotels.
No building permit or new certificate
of occupancy have been obtained for
the basement gym. For the 70 women
remaining, some of whom have
called the Longacre home for 40
years, the hotel owners' continued
encroachment on the number of
rooms and floors used as living space
makes the future uncertain. "Many
are on SSI or fixed incomes and are
still frightened to speak out," says
Peck. The worst fear now is "having
no place to go."
Building Blaze
This winter, several ferocious fires
swept through upper Manhattan
leaving six people dead and almost
300 homeless. A blaze on December
29 at 132 W. 109 St. contributed the
loss of one life to that tragic statistic.
Ninety-three tenants were placed in
a temporary shelter set up for the
night at a local school.
Within two weeks of the fire, a
meeting at Council person Carolyn
Maloney'S office set into action steps
necessary to return tenants to their
homes. The meeting included mem-
bers of the Red Cross, HPD Commu-
nity Board 7, the NY Neighborhood
Anti-Arson Center, the Manhattan
Valley Housing Clinic, the Harlem
Tenement Takeover Team, as well as
owner Peter Pantelidis and his repre-
sentatives.
Pantelidis stated at the January
meeting that he would repair fire
damage estimated at $500,000. The
tenants there have initiated an HP ac-
tion against him to seek a court order
guaranteeing their right to return to
132 W. 109 St. after renovations. One
tenant said Pantelidis showed up the
day after the fire offering to return
tenant's security deposits and an end
to the lease. In February, he offered
several tenants $2,000 to move.
Tenants' attorneys intend to get es-
timates from their own engineer of
necessary repairs while tenants live
in city shelters or with friends and
relatives. They fully intend to return
to the building no matter what.o
Mary Breen
Queens
Increases Contested
Victories d-on't always stick but the
Bru-Mar Plaza Tenants Association
hopes it's ended a four-year war for
Major Capital Increases justice.
Tenants of the two-building com-
plex at 98-01, 98-05 67th Avenue
were happy to see new roofs laid in
1981. They'd complained of leaks for
years. Tenants were not happy to re-
ceive the MCI notice of a rent hike.
It wasn't an outrageous sum but ten-
ants were outraged to pay for a repair
due to poor landlord maintenance.
The Association challenged the
MCI in 1982 on the issue of deferred
maintenance, submitting as proof the
owner's sorry repair record and viola-
tion printouts from the city's Office
of Code Enforcement.
At Bru-Mar, superficial repairs
were done while underlying prob-
lems remained. The tenants con-
tinued to update their file as the rent
agency, Conciliations and Appeals
Board deliberated. The agency finally
granted the owner a 1.5 percent rent
increase on one building and 1.7 per-
cent on the other but tied it to correct-
ing violations.
The tenants lost their challenge
and the violations weren't cleared.
Tenants paid the MCI but appealed
to the CAB-Hey, what about those
violations? CAB froze the rent in-
crease in March, 1984, and ordered
the owner to return increases col-
lected up to that point and correct
the violations. The owners refused
and the case sat until January, 1985
when CAB's successor, the state Divi-
sion of Housing and Community Re-
newal (DHCR) affirmed CAB's deci-
sion suspending the MCI and giving
the owners 60 days to appeal. Ten-
ants are restrained. They wonder-
What next?
Meanwhile in Jackson Heights ...
Alpine Tenants have a victory to
celebrate, too. The Jackson Heights
Tenants Association settled its rent
strike against their West Virginia-
based landlords, Hameed and Safder.
The agreement signed in Housing
Court on January 21 requires the
owners to repaint all four buildings,
replace or repair windows and fix all
violations in 120 days. The landlords
donated $5,000 to the Tenants As-
sociation and found a local managing
agent to collect rents and manage the
properties. The tenacious tenants
turned over rents from November
through January and have their fin-
gers crossed that all promises will be
kept.o Irma Rodriguez
PEOPLE
Senator Ve/manette Montgomery:
Putting Her Politics
To Work for Brooklyn
Montgomery toke. a dim view of the city's role in development:
"The city O!iI'ns two-third. of the housing in Sed-Stuy and if they can talce that property and turn it over
to develope" and higher income people, they are expanding their tax base and reaping enormous
benelits."
BY JILL NELSON
STATE SENATOR VEUMANETTE
Montgomery in many ways repre-
sents the best in an elected official.
She is intelligent, committed-border-
ing-on-tireless, and actually gives a
damn about what her constituents
think and what goes on in her dis-
trict. In a political landscape
peopled by far too many oppor-
tunists and cheats, Montgomery dig-
nifies the neighborhoods she repre-
sents and reminds us all what public
service should really be about.
She was elected to the State Legis-
lature two years ago for the first time,
rep"resenting an area that covers Fort
Greene, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Clinton
Hill , Prospect Heights, Park Slope,
Red Hook and Crown Heights. She is
intimately tied to the communities
for which she advocates in Albany,
having spent many years organizing
and running daycare centers. The
welfare of the young and the old have
been central concerns for Velmanette
Montgomery and since becoming a
state senator, she has increasingly
placed them in the framework of the
mushrooming housing crisis.
City Limits wanted to talk to this
woman whose name, though not yet
a household word, is quietly and ef-
feCtively gaining recognition beyond
Brooklyn's boundaries as that of a
straight shooter, true to her princi-
ples. But it was no easy task to grab
a piece of the four days Senator
Montgomery spends down in the city.
She is much in demand by this
church group, that youth organiza-
tion and as one aide reports, "she
doesn't know how to say 'no'. " But
persistence pays off and the senator
was more than willing to speak to us
about her perspectives and programs
for dealing with a housing hungry
constituency.
CL: What do you view as the major
housing problem today?
Montgomery: Homelessness. I just
came from a meeting with the Com-
munity Service Society and I asked
them what they are doing in terms of
housing for the homeless. I think that
it is time that agencies like CSS be-
come involved in the problem. Be-
cause while people are going around
referring to homelessness as tempo-
. rary,- it is not, it is permanent, and it
is an issue that we will have to deal
with. We've got to look at these shel-
ters with some sense of their being
permanent, and therefore we have to
provide a decent, safe place for these
people to live.
There is a hotel several blocks
from my office and there are 400
families living there. That's a figure
that multiplies when you count the
children in these families, children
who are going to be growing up in
that environment.
CL: What actions are being taken
by the State Legislature to address the
problem?
Montgomery: Some members of the
Black and Puerto Rican Caucus have
requested, through Stanley Fink, that
we hold public hearings involving
the social services committee, the
children and family services commit-
tee, the mental hygiene committee
and the housing committee. These
four committees are going to do it and
we are going to try to identify, jointly,
what the housing dollars we are
spending are buying us. How these
programs are working or not, how
many people we have housed, etc.
That is a beginning. And I am going
to be organizing to get as many people
involved as possible. I spoke to CSS
and am trying to get them and a
number of other organizations to put
up some money to sponsor buses to
Albany for these hearings, so we can
actually get some homeless people
up there. It's the first time, to my
knowledge, that we've really tJ;,ied to
look at this problem across the board.
CL: Do you perceive a commitment
on the part of other legislators to
changing the situation of the home-
less?
Montgomery: Yes. A lot of the legis-
lators are really quite concerned be-
cause they realize that this whole
group of homeless people is not going
to just go away, and is growing.
CL: What about the situation of
homeless women with children?
Montgomery: It's now common
knowledge that the largest and fastest
growing population of the homeless
are women with children. In my dis-
trict I have about 20,000 units of pub-
lic housing and in some of those
buildings, almost the whole popula-
tion is single women with children.
In the Brooklyn Arms hotel, which
houses the homeless, almost all of the
residents are single women with chil-
dren. We are talking about women
and children who have no perma-
nency in their lives in terms of hous-
ing, school, nutrition and all the
other things that are necessary. The
services are just not available.
And there are very few programs
that address these needs. In one of
the hotels in Manhattan there is a
program run by Hudson Guild where
women living in the hotel can come
together and attempt to deal with
these problems. Problems like having
to walk your child to school along
42nd Street, the lack of support ser-
vices, how to keep from killing your
kid when you're living like these
women do in these hotels, and all the
other problems that come with home-
lessness. And just this one small
program means so much' to these
women. These are the types of prog-
rams we have to begin to think about
in terms of the homeless, particularly
homeless women with children.
CL: Mayor Koch often seems to
blame the victims of homelessness.
Montgomery: Of course. There has
always been a stigma attached to poor
people, and the homeless suffer from
this stigma because they are a cate-
gory of poor people. The attitude is
that somehow they don't deserve any
better than what these hotels provide.
If these hotels were used to house
women with estate money, the ser-
vices would be there, services that do
not exist for the homeless. Koch is
the one who sets the tone for the
whole city to respond in this way.
The city spends something like $240
million a year to house the homeless.
And for that kind of money people
shouldn't be living like that! Poor
people are conduits for an enormous
amount of money and they receive
no benefits.
CL: Could you tell me about some
of the actions you've taken to forestall
foreclosures in your district?
Montgomery: We just wrote a letter
to Paul Crotty (Commissioner of Fi-
nance), with copies to the Board of
Estimate and the mayor, asking them
to change some of the administrative
procedures' involving foreclosures as
a result of tax arrears. Last year I saw
that there would be a large number
of foreclosure notices going out, and
two-thirds would involve property
owners in my district. What I found
out when I looked into the issue was
that once a property owner received
a tax bill from the city, there was no
follow-up, no reminder sent to them
that they were in arrears, and the next
communication these people re-
ceived from the city was a foreclosure
notice.
In Bedford-Stuyvesant in particu-
lar, a lot of the homeowners are not
able to demand rents that are enough
to cover the cost of maintaining their
homes. Many of them are on fixed
incomes, and even if these people go
down to the city and enter into an
installment agreement to pay the tax
bill, once that agreement is made,
they never again get billed. No bill,
no reminders, not even a statement
of how much they have paid and
what they still owe is sent to them
by the city of New York, so that if
you forget, that's your problem.
When I learned about this, I pulled
together a group of neighborhood
housing groups, of advocacy organi-
zations and individuals and we
created a committee to come up witl-;
a list of the various areas - state, City
Council and administrative ac-
tions-where we could address this
issue. And I am currently working on
a piece of legislation that would ad-
dress the problem.
CL: The process you described
sounds kind of sinister on the part of
the city. What do you think?
Montgomery: I think its just insen-
sitivity and incompetence in terms
of the agency involved. But the city
also has this attitude that if you're
too poor to keep up your property,
you shouldn't have it and the city
should just take it.
At the same time, the policy of HPD
now is that they are participating in
the increasing value of property in
New York City. The city owns two-
thirds of the housing in Bed-Stuy and
if they can take that property and turn
it over fo' developers and higher in-
come people, they are expanding
their tax base and reaping enormous
benefits. For example, in Clinton Hill
they are auctioning property for
$80,000 that ten years ago you could
purchase for $3,000 or $4,000. If they
can seize a large enough plot of land,
one that would interest a developer,
they will look to seize that land. If
there are two vacant lots on a block
and four houses in tax arrears, that
becomes a tract of land and attracts
scrutiny by city agencies. When a de-
veloper comes in, the new housing
that is constructed is unaffordable to
the people who previously lived on
that block.
CL: In New York City today, is
housing a right?
Montgomery: It ought to be, but it
is not. Housing should not be viewed,
as it is today, as a commodity to be
played with in the marketplace for
real estate investment purposes. Cer-
tainly not to the extent it is today. If
government saw housing as part of a
right for everybody, they would try
to make some arrangements to pro-
vide it.
What's happened now is there is
no new housing being built for poor
people because it has to be sub-
sidized, either to build it or on an
, ongoing basis for rent subsidy, and
these programs are no longer availa-
ble. So what the government is doing
now is entering into arrangements
with developers, contractors and
builders and offering them the sub-
sidy-it does not go to the tenant.
CL: Weren't you involved in legisla-
tion to set up a kind of "loan fund"
to preserve housing for poor and
working people?
Montgomery: Last year there was a
bill to establish a Corporation for
'w Name
City
% i , ~ . t 1 - wWesg,;3rdtStreet, New York, NY 1 0001 \jb
Community Banking and I am look-
ing at that to see if we can get Denny
Farrell, the banking chair, to re-intro-
duce that bill with an eye toward set-
ting up a community-basedbanking
institution. One that would address
a number of these problems, includ-
ing foreclosure, in-rem housing, even
down to a community-based credit
union.
CL: Where do you see the housing
crisis in New York City going?
Montgomery: So-called middle in-
come housing is the only housing
being built these days that is not lux-
ury housing, but earning $20,000-
$25,000 these days no longer makes
you middle class and so even this
housing is not affordable. These
people are becoming the new poor
people and some of them will become
homeless. Where will they go? There
are no SRO's anymore and there is
no decent affordable housing for
working people. Clearly, the housing
problem is going to get worse and
more and more people will be home-
less.o .
State Zip Code
PIPELINE
Ready to Learn, Ready to Work
A class at the LaGuardia special pilot program for homeless women:
The key is to provide people with options and a chance to meet people who care about them.
BY BARBARA SOLOW
''I'M A SURVIVOR. I ALWAYS
have been," declared 25-year-old
Gina Holder as she gathered up her
notebooks and made ready for her
next class. "I really feel good about
this program because it gives us a
chance, for once."
Holder and 25 other women living
in welfare hotels in Queens, Manhat-
tan and the Bronx are part of a special .
pilot training program sponsored by
the Division of Continuing Education
at LaGuardia Community College.
The lO-week program designed to
address the causes of homelessness,
helps women on public assistance get
the skills and confidence they need
to find jobs. And unlike many private
training programs, this one takes the
women's personal needs into ac-
count. The college offers free trans-
portation and childcare services,
paying for babysiUers in the hotels
and providing space at LaGuardia for
women to bring their children to
classes. Sessions in typing, business
English and career education are of-
fered twice a week.
Breaking Ground
"This is the first program of its kind
in the city," explained Fern Khan, di-
rector of the Community Service
Programs at LaGuardia. "The key
here is to provide people with op-
tions and a chance to meet people
who care about them and welcome
their input into the program."
The idea for a project involving
homeless women grew out of a con-
ference on homeless families held at
the college last January. Queens
houses the largest number of home-
less families in the city. with half of
the families placed in hotels by city
agencies located in the borough.
"People were amazed at the number
of homeless families in the area," said
Khan. "We knew we couldn't do any-
thing to solve that problem right
away but we wanted to do something
to ease conditions for people."
The proposal for a training prog-
ram offering homeless women job
skills and counseling won the sup-
port of funders at the New York Com-
munity Trust and classes began at the
college last November. The majority
of students are young, single
mothers. Some of them have skills
from previous jobs while others are
eager to finish schooling they never
got a chance to complete.
SureUa Glover came to the program
with experience as a registered nurse
and switchboard operator as well as
two years of college. She had been
living in an apartment in St. Albans,
Queens before a fire claimed it. Now,
Glover comes to class with a group
of women from the Traveller's Inn
near LaGuardia Airport.
"The atmosphere at the hotels is
very depressing," Glover said. "We
need to get the women out of there.
If more women could get out and
come to a program like this, they'd
be more able to work."
"It's hard to move around and do
things when you have young chil-
dren," said Trissena Radcliffe, who
has a young son. "When I was in high
school, I didn't want to go to class
ever. Now I feel I can do it. I want to
be able to reach out to my son. With
both of us learning in school we can
relate to each other beUer."
More Classes
More funding is needed if the prog-
ram is to continue but both directors
are hopeful they will be able to ex-
pand the training sessions. "Origi-
nally this was designed for mothers
but now we even have a single father
who is interested," commented Wil-
son. "If we got a core group in every
hotel, we could offer group sessions
on parenting-not to criticize, but as
a way of sharing experiences and
problems in common."
The way the city offers services to
the homeless should be changed Wil-
son believes. "I don't see why we
can't use the Henry Street Settlement
model as a way of organizing ser-
vices. Everything should be in one
place."
Khan is now negotiating with com-
panies like Brooklyn Union Gas, ask-
.. ing them to sponsor a job fair for the
~ women. "We need to bridge the gap
i between training and job placement,"
lie she explained. The college is also
=== ~ planning to work more closely with
groups such as Catholic Charities and
the Coalition for the Homeless is de-
signing and publicizing future prog-
rams.
Marguerite Green leads a clall in career education:
511_ing women "'at "'e, can cllange "'e concept 0' wllo "'e, are.
The trials of being on public assist-
ance coupled with the demands of
caring for families make regular at-
.' ten dance difficult for many of the
women - even with transportation
and childcare paid for. "I've realized
a lot more fully what it's like being
out there as a mother, with the hotel
manager on my back, my kids run-
ning around with no place to play
and no time to spend on finding a
job." said Program Coordinator Joan'
Wilson. "We expect these women to
be well-directed but yet our services
for them are not coordinated. We
have one young woman here who had
to give up a good job at a bank because
she just couldn't find a babysitter."
Reaching Out
To publicize the program, Wilson
and Khan visited hotels in Queens
and Manhattan and worked with
crisis intervention agencies to get the
word out to homeless women. Tris-
sena Radcliffe learned about the
program through an ad in Newsday.
At first, women in only two hotels
signed up. But in the final weeks of
the program, calls flooded in from
hotels in all boroughs, from men and
women, homeless and housed alike.
So far, the program only teaches
office-related skills but Khan hopes
that being in a college environment
will encourage women to branch out.
"I want people to see they have
choices," she declared. "They don't
have to be just typists. LaGuardia has
a lot of programs: physical therapy,
nursing, human services. We want to
train women to get good jobs."
In Marguerite Green's career edu-
cation class, the women use vid-
eotape to look at themselves and
analyze their self image. "Because
they are women, they've been told to
stay in their place; that they can only
go so far," stated Green. "We want to
show them they can change the con-
cept of who they are."
The program also helps ease the
sense of isolation many women feel
living in strange neighborhoods.
Milagros Davila has lived at the Aller-
ton Hotel on West 22nd St. for two
years. She left her Coney Island apart-
ment when she could no longer af-
ford the soaring rent there. "But even
if I do get into my own apartment
again, I want to stay here and get into
more classes," she said. "People here
have the same problems as you do.
We bring our kids here together. It's
nice to see people who want to do
something for themselves."
Meanwhile, in the business En-
glish class, Trissena Radcliffe and a
friend from another hotel bent
closely over their exercises, debating
which was the right answer. Upstairs
in one of the offices, a group of small
children made a circle and began to
run around in a ring. One little boy
named Solomon was already asleep
on a nearby couch while his mother
attended class downstairs.
"A lot of people have the wrong
impressions about us," argued
Suretta Glover. "They see women in
the hotels as different somehow.
They feel we're not trying to do any-
thing for ourselves. But a lot of the
women are just ordinary women.
They got burned out or their rent is
too high. We're not bad women."
"I don't want to take just any-
thing-any old apartment, any old
job," added Gina Holder. "I have my
kids to think about. I have their future
to think about. And I want to be able
to hold out for something good." 0
Barbara Solow is a freelance jour-
nalist and co-host of Econonews on
WBAl.
J
BUILDING BLOCKS
Repairing Interior Walls
REP AIRING CRACKS AND SMALL
holes in interior walls and covering
them with a fresh coat of paint can
make a dramatic difference in the ap-
pearance of a room. Most wall repairs
can be made with common tools and
readily-available inexpensive mater-
ials.
Minor cracks and nail holes can be
repaired simply using a putty knife .
and filling the cracks with ready-
mixed spackling paste. Larger and
more persistent cracks can be re-
paired using sheetrock tape and
wallboard compound. Begin by
cleaning loose material from the
crack using a small pointed scraper
or pointed can opener. Next, apply a
generous layer of compound and
press the tape into the compound
using a 3-inch or 4-inch taping knife.
Second and third layers of compound
may be necessary to achieve the
smoothness desired before painting.
Each layer should be completely dry
before the next is applied.
Larger holes can also be repaired
with either patching plaster or sheet-
rock and wallboard compound.
When using patching plaster, back
the hole with something for the plas-
ter to hold onto. In old plaster walls
the wood lath may be intact, but
where it is not, or for holes in sheet-
rock walls, wire lath can be used.
Patching It
Pick away loose material with a
chisel or old screw driver. Then the
edges of the hole should be back cut
to allow the patching material to get
behind the edge of the plaster using
a pointed scraper or pointed can
opener. The edges of the hole must
be kept damp to prevent the old plas-
ter or sheetrock from drawing the
moisture from the new patch and
causing it to crack around the edges.
These repair materials all shrink as
they set or dry, so whenever a repair
will be more than 3/16-inch thick it
will require more than one layer. The
first layer should be scratched to en-
able the next layer to hold. The tex-
ture of the new patch may be slightly
different than the old, but this should
not affect the finish.
Another technique is to fill the hole
using a plug made of sheetrock and
seal it in place with wallboard com-
pound. Begin by removing loose mat-
erial from the hole and then cut the
hole into a square. For plaster a small
chisel and hammer can be used to
cut; on sheetrock a small saw or sharp
utility knife will do the job.
Cutting a Plug
Next, prepare the plug. Start with
a piece of sheetrock 2-inches larger
in both directions than the hole to be
plugged. Then, on the back of the
sheetrock patch, draw the hole in the
center. Use a utility knife to cut
through the backing paper and peel
it and the gypsum center away from
the face paper. This will leave a plug
the size of the hole attached to the
oversized face paper. Check that the
plug is the right size and trim if neces-
sary. Spread wallboard compound
around the plug and the hole. Then
press the plug gently mto the hole
using the wide taping knife to smooth
the paper edges on the wall surface.
Once the plug is hard, a little more
compound may be needed to smooth
the edges.
With any of these repairs some
light sanding will be necessary to
smooth the area before painting. All
repairs should be coated with an ap-
propriate primer before painting is
started.
The finish paint should be chosen
for such characteristics as sheen,
durability and washability. Consider
the method of application: the tradi-
tional brush, roller and painting pads
are fine for a few rooms;for larger
areas a power roller or airless sprayer
is appropriate. For best results paint
should be applied to clean, dry sur-
faces. As with all repair materials,
read and follow manufacturers' in-
structions.
Time spent preparing and repair-
ing walls for painting will be re-
flected in the quality of the finished
product.D
For free, illustrated fact sheets on
wall repairs send a SASE to HAND-
NAN, Cornell Cooperative Exten-
sion, 280 Broadway, Room 701, New
York, NY 10007. Mention City
Limits, March 1986.
e
COOPERATIVE
EXTENSION
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
FEATURE
No Safe Place:
Battered Women in
Homelessness
BY KATHY DOBIE
I
t is almost two years now since
Esther first huddled over her son
Jacob and took Daniel's kicks to
her face and head. The battering con-
tinued even when Esther was pre-
gnant with her youngest child, Jus-
tine.
..
M
Ost Women that fll
run straight intd
shel ters where they ftj
bad as the ones they ~
Esther and Jacob escaped from bat-
tering into homelessness landing first
in a battered women's shelter. When
the gO-day stay was up, and she still
hadn't fomid an apartment she could
afford, they began a trek from
emergency shelters to welfare hotels
that house New York City's homeless
people. She and Jacob moved into
Four Bells, a barracks-style shelter in
Brooklyn and then into the Crown
Hotel in Manhattan. There she gave
birth to the baby girl she calls her
"miracle" because the doctors told
her the fetus was dead and if she
didn't have her womb scraped, she'd
be poisoned. "I just didn't want to
believe he could get away with mur-
der," Esther says of the man who
kicked her stomach while she carried
their child. In the seventh month, the
doctors detected a heart beat "ever so
tiny" and Justine was born on New
Years Day at the Crown.
Cereal boxes and jars are stacked on the small refrigerator of Esther's room:
Her broken cheekbones and nose
were healed by the time they made
their last move to the Red Cross
Emergency Family Center. "If you
have to be in a hotel, this is the best
one." Esther says. She and her chil-
dren have been there over a year.
Cereal boxes and jars of peanut but-
ter are stacked on top of the small
refrigerator. There is no stove but
most women sneak in hot plates to
warm soup or make hot cereal. Toys
_ of all kinds are piled in the corner
and scattered brightly across the
room. Jacob and Justine have no home
and their mom has to lie to make a
If you ha.,e to go to a hotel, the Reel Cross Center ;s the best.
hot meal but, thanks to various
charities, the kids are rich in toys.
But don't underestimate the value
of these toys, say the resident social
workers. Kids need to have things in
a world where they don't have much
else. And the children of batterers
learn a very special lesson about pos-
session. "It's very tough for any kid
to be in a welfare hotel," explains
one, "but even more so for kids of
batterers. If they were in an apartment
and had to move out, it's tough for
the kids to accept that they have to
live in one room with their three sis-
ters and their mother; and their
father's got a five room apartment. "
Different from the Rest
No one knows exactly how many
of the homeless women living in New
York City's emergency shelters and
welfare hotels are battered women
who have mustered the courage to
break away. Glory Kerstein, director
of the Red Cross Emergency Family
Shelter, which houses gO families in-
cluding 280 children, estimates that
ten percent of the women there are
, battered. Since this represents only
those women willing to tell Red Cross
caseworkers they have been abused,
I'
violence at home
homelessness and
.ce ordeals often as

the amount is probably higher, says
Kerstein.
During 1984-1985, 6,521 women
and children were refused shelter by
77 percent of the domestic violence
programs in New York City, according
to a survey done by the New York
State Coalition Against Domestic Vio-
lence. These women either enter the
city shelters and hotels for the home-
less or return to the batterer. Other
women, like Esther, are lucky enough
to get into one of the battered
women's shelters but cannot find an
apartment within the mandated limit
of their stay.
The monthly records at the Henry
Street Settlement shelter for battered
women show that two of the nine
women that left the shelter in October
1985 had no place to go. Both were
sent to the Department of Social Ser-
vices to be assigned a place among
the homeless in a shelter or a welfare
hotel. One of the women hadn't found
an apartment and her time was up;
another had to leave because her hus-
band had tracked her down and no
other battered women's shelter had
space. Battered women also go di-
rectly to homeless shelters simply be-
cause they don't know battered
women's shelters exist.
Whatever route they come by, bat-
tered women arrive at the emergency
shelters and hotels with a history of
violent abuse and an acute sense of
their own vulnerability. They arrive
with a dire need for physical protec-
tion from the tracking batterer and
support in planning a new life for
themselves and their children.
"Battered women do not belong in
homeless shelters," asserts Marjory
Fields, lawyer with Brooklyn Legal
Services and co-chair of the Gover-
nor's Commission on Domestic Vio-
lence. "Homeless shelters are geared
toward the problem of poverty and
battered women have that along with
a whole other range of needs."
Once within the homeless shelters
and welfare hotels, the violent his-
tory and vulnerability of the women
and their children remain an open
wound, unhealed and even
traumatized by the conditions there.
:; When Esther left the battered
6 women's shelter and entered Four
Q Bells, she was eight months pregnant.
She saw three floors of cots where
men, women and children were
herded together. It was noisy, the
bathrooms were dirty and on the
whole was "pretty miserable," Esther
recalls.
Violence is commonplace in con-
gregate shelters. With all those people
living so unhappily in such close
quarters "there's always a lot of poten-
tial for violence," says Shirley Jones,
a former Red Cross worker and shift
supervisor at the Roberto Clemente
and 151st Street shelters. "Fights
break out, weapons are brought into
the shelter. I have taken knives from
folks , machet;ls."
Kerstein directed Four. Bells,
Roberto Clemente and 151st Street-
all open barracks - before the Red
Cross pulled out of operations there
in the summer of 1985. She says for
battered women "the whole set up of
fear is just intensified by congregate
living. You're in one large room with
100 different people including teen-
age males and adult males you don't
even know. Everything's out in the
open, no privacy. Clearly, the environ-
ment of a shelter does not lend itself
to dealing with the aggravated fears,
tensions and defensiveness of a per-
son who has been the victim of vio-
lence and abuse."
Hide in Plain Sight
For battered women, the threat of
violence comes not only from within
the shelter walls, it busts in from out-
side. The Red Cross Emergency Fam-
ily Center has a strict visitors policy
but even so, Kerstein says, "At the en-
trance to our facility we have experi-
enced numerous situations where
there's battering right there in front
of the door and we've had to intervene
with our staff and pull the guy away.
We've had instances where that same
spouse or boyfriend has tried to kid-
nap the children."
Unlike battered women's shelters,
homeless shelters' locations are not
kept secret. Batterers will routinely
call or visit each shelter until they
find their targets. Many of the congre-
gate shelters are set up so the batterer
can get a clear view of all the beds
without ever having to get beyond the
guards at the front door. If he sees the
woman, he just waits outside for her.
Sometimes the batterer finds his
target because she tells him. "The
woman gets into the shelter situation
and the support network she'd have
in a battered women's shelter is mis-
sing," explains Juanita Colon, direc-
tor of the Henry Street Shelter for Bat-
tered Women. one of the things
that really torments the women is
guilt for taking their kids away form
their father who may have beat her
but treated the kids really good."
At Henry Street, the women dis-
cuss plans for the kids to see the
father with minimal risk to the
mother. Colon says counseling and
support from people who understand
battering is crucial. "Counseling here
is carefully tailored for that specific
Red Cross Family Center director Glory Kerstein at work:
She estimates that 10 percent of residents are battered women.
issue. We discuss plans a woman has
to stay away from the battering situa-
tion, the things she can do to insure
her safety. They plan new lives with
new men or without men; they talk
about how to tell if a man is a batterer.
Women are presented with a whole
bunch of options they never thought
they had. "
No such discussions take place at
homeless shelters. There the woman
might tell the father to come to the
shelter. "The wife would meet her
husband at the door, " says Jones,
"and he'd beat her up before we could
get to her. "
"If we know a woman is battered,
we will try to get her into a battered
women's shelter, " claims Brendan
Collins, the current director of
Clemente. Collins says the Human
Resources Administration, whicb.
runs shelters, wants to provide shel-
ters with a daily updated listing of
spaces available in the battered
women's shelters.
. There are two obvious hitches to
that system. Since battered women's
shelters cannot meet the demand for
space, moving a woman from a home-
less shelter to a battered women's
shelter is like the game of musical
chairs where you're always short one
chair: for every woman the HRA
moves into the battered women's shel-
ter, another woman arrives to find it
full and ends up in the homeless shel-
ter.
And shelters do not always know
which women are battered. Many
women will not tell the Crisis Inter-
vention Services caseworkers at the
shelter that they are battered. Accord-
ing to Collins, caseworkers don't have
the time to draw that kind of painful
information out of the women. "It's
such a transient population," he says,
"the caseworkers can't be that sophis-
ticated."
Hotel Horror
A battered woman is like a sitting
duck in a welfare hotel. Batterers are'
halted outside shelter doors but can
walk right into the welfare hotels.
"Depending on the hotel and the type
of security, the guy could walk right
in the door," says Clare Reilly, social
work superv\sor for Services to Pre-
vent Placement (STOPP). STOPP is a
program of the Women In Need shel-
ter providing intervention services in
the hotels for homeless families
where there's risk of children being
.... placed in foster care.
E Esther's friend Linda, another bat-
~ tered woman living at the Red Cross
:;. Center, lived in the notorious Hol-
5 land Hotel in midtown for a year and
Q a half. For the first 11 months, the
father of her two children, Frank, reg-
ularly came to the hotel and beat her.
"The Holland was the worst time.
There he knew the people; there he
acted like they're friends in order to
get in, in order to see me."
The guards didn't know Linda was
being beaten and she didn't tell them
because she was embarrassed and af-
raid Frank would hurt her even worse
if he found out. When summer rolled
around, short-sleeved shirts revealed
Linda's black-and-blues. The guards
Esther stayed in her room at the Carlton Arms but strange men
kept coming to her room and offering her money for sex.
Kerstein offers support to Esther in her room at the Family Center:
Esther would not face the camera; her violent spouse still hunts her f,om .h.lt., to .It.lt.,.
began to keep Frank out, offering to
beat him up themselves and take
good care of Linda. "It didn't bother
me that they were always coming on
to me," Linda says. "They felt sorry
for me. They told me I didn't have to
be with him. They told me I could do
better."
Sexual harassment from the male
hotel employees is part of daily life
there. Reilly says women get obscene
phone calls all hours of the night and
often worse. A security guard at the
Holland recently was arrested on
charges of rape. When the women are
sexually harassed, "they are often
told not to tell or they'll be out on
the streets," says Reilly.
One 4 a.m. a woman from down
the hall knocked on Esther's door
when she was staying in the Crown.
"Can you watch my daughter?"
Esther was astonished and said, "It's
four in the morning! Where are you
going?" The woman said the night
manager had just come to her room
with the ultimatum she have sex with
him or lose her room.
"I think most of the women are able
to deal with it, are able to say in kind,
' Get lost'" says Bob Jorgen, deputy
administrator for Crisis Intervention
Services. "People put up with all
kinds of things in the world and that
kind of behavior is not peculiar to
welfare hotels. It happens on the ,
street, on the job."
Women at the hotel often feel that
is all they can do about sexual harass-
ment-expect it and put up with it.
Reilly points out that calls to the
police must go through the hotel
switchboard and, though faced with
severe harassment, women are afraid
of losing even a dirty and violent shel-
ter. Battered women feel that intimi-
dation more bitingly. Aurelio Rios Jr.,
a caseworker at the Red Cross Center
can spot which clients are battered
because they never come out of their
rooms. "They're the easiest to deal
with," he laughs sardonically. "They
were beat up so much by meri, they're
conditioned to leave 'people alone."
Esther stayed in her room at the
Carlton Arms but strange men kept
coming to the door and offering her
money for sex. Prostitutes work out
of many of the homeless hotels.
Esther thinks the men just didn't
know which were the prostitutes and
would mix them up with the home-
less. Linp.a offers a different explana-
tion, "They assumed you being on
welfare, you needed the money."
Fights with the prostitutes were
common, says Esther. One of them
threatened Justine and Esther flew at
her, beating her up badly. Still scared
and a little disgusted at her own reac-
tion, Esther says, "It was about this
time I realized battered women have
certain problems. I've heard stories
from other battered women. They say
the baby will accidentally hit them
in the face with a toy and they'll fly
off the handle. The mother's automa-
tic reaction is to ball up her fist and
hit."
Battered women trade domestic
violence for the scattered and unpre-
. Courtyard of the Red Cross Family Center is ideal for child's play:
, After leaving a via/ent home, children of batterers need security.
dictable fights, muggings, verbal
abuse and rape in hotels. To children
of battered women, the commotion
they hear in such situations is
threatening. "They get very excited
with noise," explains Wanda Daniels,
caseworker at the Red Cross Center
and former crisis counselor for the
Victim Services Agency at Kings
County Hospital. "The least raise of
a voice and they anticipate an erup-
tion because they've heard it some
many times-when one starts yel-
ling, they know the battering is get-
ting ready to begin."
"The kids are supposed to be leav-
ing a violent situation and going to a
safe situation so that somewhere they
have a sense there's a safe place for
them and their mothers," states
Karen Singer, program coordinator at
Women In Need's shelter. "So the
message to the kids is, 'there's no safe
place.'"
Recently Linda babysat for Jacob
and Justine while Esther went to the
doctor. Linda's four-year-old boy, Ray,
raced around the room, enraged and
scattering toys. He picked up a plastic
bat, screaming and choking on snot
and tears, and swung it at his mother.
"Look what I've got to hurt you! I'm
going to hurt you now." Esther's son
began to rock back and forth on his
heels. He points one finger at the
angry boy and whispers, "No, no."
Esther monitors her son's television
watching but has been unable to sc-
reen the violence in the hotels and
shelters from him. "I'm so afraid.
Maybe it's because he's a boy, but I
just don't want him growing up and
his wife coming to me with her face
destroyed. "
Housing Is Crucial
"The city encourages batterec
women to go back to the batterer,'
says Singer. "In some many ways, thE
system is set up so things are so un
bearable, they go back." While ShE
was at the Carlton, Esther met
Marissa. "All of her fingers are
crooked because her husband
smashed them with a hammer and
told her if she went to the emergency
room, he was going to kill their
daughter. She went back to him."
Marissa couldn't find an apartment
and couldn't stand another week at
the hotel.
These women, these Marissas, dis-
appear without a sound. There is no
way to know the number of women
who return to the batterer because of
the miserable conditions of the shel-
ters and hotels where they are forced
to stay for months and even years be-
cause they cannot find safe and af-
fordable housing. But the women
who remain fighting to find that
home, speak also for these silent
ones.
"I've considered going back and kil-
ling him," Esther says. "You know bat-
terers usually follow a pattern. The
day you walk back in the house, you
don't get beaten. That night when he
goes to sleep, kill him. That way we'd
have the apartment. Then I thought,
'Right, that way I'd be in jail too and
my kids would be in foster care and
I might never get them back. '"
Esther has thought about killing
the batterer in order to go home and
she's also thought about killing her-
self. When she had to leave the Crown
at the end of her 28-day stay, she was
reassigned to a cheaper hotel. She
stored much of her belongings at a
church next to the hotel and moved
into the Carlton Arms. When she
went to pick up her things, they were
gone.
"When I came back here, I didn't
Once in a homeless shelter or hotel, the violent history and
. vulnerability of battered women are open wounds that can't
heal.
even want to look at my own kids. I
just felt like, what do they need me
for? I can't even keep a few toys and
a few clothes for them. I can't find a
place to live. I just felt like they didn't
need me around." Esther considered
giving them up for adoption but knew
she would come looking for them.
She wouldn't if she killed herself,
though. So Esther put the kids to bed,
got a glass of water and opened a bot-
tle of muscle relaxant pills. "And then
I looked over at him and thought,
'what happens when he wakes in the
morning and sees me?' The next day
I checked myself into New York Hos-
pital."
Today Esther's son Jacob walks a
plastic robot across the low hotel
dresser at the Red Cross Center. Jus-
tine sleeps in a velveteen dress, dia-
pered bottom sticking up in the air.
Esther has spent every day of the two
years since leaving home feeding
them and keeping a roof over their
heads. She is looking for an apart-
ment and can't find one. "I don't
know where I'm going from here.
Back into another hotel where you're
out every 28 days or back into another
shelter. Again I'll have to lose every-
thing and I just don't want my kids
going through it. I don't want the bed-
bugs biting them, the roaches crawl-
ing on them. I don't want them ex-
posed to the violence and the dirt."
As Marjory Fields points out, even
if more battered women's shelters
were funded and the gO-day limit ex-
tended, all of it means nothing if the
city cannot provide housing women
like Esther can afford.
Nothing is granted in Esther's exis-
tence. Not physical safety, not a hot
meal, not a home to raise the kids
and keep them safe and warm. Esther
must struggle for all. While the man
who brutalized her sits comfortably
at home plotting ways to find and
hurt her, Esther, Jacob and her "mira-
cle" camp out among the victims of
eviction, fire and overty, waiting for
another miracle. 0
Kathy Dobie is a freelance writer in-
terested in women's issues.
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FEATURE
The Company of
Wo men =w==o=m:::::::::en='=s=r=es=i=d=en=c=e=s=a=r=e=a=n=b=u=t=e=x=t=in=c=t
but they have a history that stretches
back over a century of providing a vital
housing resource in New York City.
BY ELEANOR J. BADER
W
hen bilingual teachers from
Spain arrived in New York
last August, they got a quick
education in the city's affordable
housing shortage. Some doubled up
in cramped apartments. Others, fear-
ful of the scoundrels, robbers and
exploiters who lurk in every corner
of New York's reputation, found
rooms in the Martha Washington
Hotel for women.
They were able to rest a little easier
there, comfortable in an all-female
haven where women have felt safe
since the building opened its doors
in 1903. It was the world's first exclu-
. sively female hotel.
Women-only housing is on the de-
cline in New York City. Only 13 such
residences still exist. All but three are
run by religious or ethnic societies-
the same groups to run the first
homes prior to, and since, the turn
of the century. Such housing was orig-
inally created for two reasons: the per-
ceived need to protect , innocent,
young women from male sexuality
and employers desire to keep a con-
stant, watchful eye on their work-
force.
But if times have changed and with
them the morality of women in 'sin
city,' the demand for women's resi-
dences is alive and well. The problem
is that while demand is still strong
and need even stronger, women's resi- ,
dences are falling prey to housing
market forces. Luxury conversions to
private ownership or to co-ed habita-
tion have whittled away at housing
for women that began a century ago.
Factory Girls
As far back as 1814 planners and
industrialists conceived, and exe-
cuted, plans to house single working
women - tightly controlled places of
respite from long hours at the looms.
Every New England mill town had
them.
Tenant-workers in the mills were
subjected to harsh rules in these com-
pany-owned places. Com-
monly, five women shared a 16 by
14-foot room. Residents had to attend
Sunday church services and make all
purchases in the company store.
Still, the boarding house plan was
.morally acceptable for single women
leaving home for the first time. A
home supervised by a matron - often
a widow provided the reassurance
many farm families needed before
they would willingly send their
daughters to far away workplaces. But
send them they did: young, white
women by the thousands flocked to
New England mills in search of work
as the first workforce of the Industrial
Revolution.
For some, the boarding house com-
munity became a surrogate family.
For others, it was a place to bide time.
Depending on who ran the house, it
could be a place of lively comraderie,
a place to make friends and learn
about the world. It could also be as
dingy and cold as that described by
resident Marie Von Vorst, "Unpainted
huts, raised on stilts from the soil,
fever ridden and malarious; this
blank ugly line of sun blistered shan-
ties is a mill village. There is not a
garden within miles, not a flower,
scarcely a tree."
By the turn of the century, young
women followed jobs to the nation's
mushrooming metropolitan areas.
Unlike mill towns where housing was
provided directly by employers,
housing for city women was usually
run by charitable, ethnic or religious
organizations. Not that private em-
ployers had no interest in the housing
available to their female employees.
In fact, since many of the "charitable"
residences appealed to the public for
financial help, industrialists and bos-
ses could fund women's housing
while at the same time manipulating
both wages and workforce. "When a
salesgirl complains that she cannot
live upon $6 or $7 a week wage of-
-fered her," wrote one woman, "the
answer is apt to be 'go to such and.
such a home. You can live there for
$3.50 a week.'"
In this context, it's easy to see why
Charles B. Webster, a senior partner
in R.H. Macy and Company, donated
the Webster Apartments to New York
City women in 1923. Other rich
philanthropists like Mrs. Russell
Sage, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Mrs. John
D. Rockefeller, Mrs. Samuel Morse
and the Tiffany family, among others,
provided cash to the Ladies Christian
Union so that "young ladies who are
supporting themselves by their own
exertions" would have a Christian
home to live in. The Salvation Army's
Evangeline Booth convinced coal
boss John Markle to donate the
$500,000 needed to break ground for
their first women's residence.
House Rules
In 1915, 54 organizations were run-
ning noncommercial homes for work-
ing women and girls and almost every
nationality _had a- home of its own.
Newspaper and magazine articles
often contained residents' com-
plaints about bad conditions and un-
'necessary restrictions. Mary Mor- _
timer Maxwell wrote in a February 7,
1909 New York Times piece about her
experiences: "To get !nto a h,ome one
must be a Protestant. Just how can a
nicely behaved Roman Catholic girl
do much harm to the establishment
by sleeping there overnight is a prob-
lem I often try to solve." She recounts
how she was told that having a ty-pe-
writer in her room was against the
rules: "You advertise these places as
a home for self supporting women
and now 'ou take away from me my
means 0 self support." Maxwell
blasts the homes for being "more like
reform schools or rescue places, the
heads treating the inmates with sus-
picion of the most uncharacteristic
. and unchristianlike kind."
Other periodicals criticize more
than the 10 P.M. curfews and religious
restrictions. The March 1910 issue of
Ladies Home Journal published
"What It Means to Be a Chorus Girl."
The author's salary did not allow her
to patronize first-class hotels and
those priced within her means were
"intolerable filthy and untidy, worse
than all, these hotels are positively
unsafe for girls. I have again and again
slept in hotels where I was compelled
to barricade my door by pushing my
bureau against it and piling my
washstand on top of the bureau." She
ended by calling for creation of low
cost hotels for working women.
In 1910, when this was written, few
hotels exclusively for women existed
anywhere in the world. The Martha
Washington was the'first one, opened
in 1903. The hotel was purchased in
1888 by a group of wealthy New York
City women who were incensed that
they could not rent a hotel room or
apartment without a man. After pur-
chasing the building-formerly a
home for unwed mothers - they
walked the street wearing sandwich
board signs reading "No Men or Dogs
Allowed."
An all-woman staff ran the build-
ing until sometime in the late 1920's
when the hotel was sold, according
to current owner David Carroll. "They
did all the management. Women even
shoveled coal into the boiler," he re-
lates. A Times ad for the new hotel
boasted of a music room, tea rooms,
sun parlors and Thrkish and Russian
baths. Not surprisingly, the Martha
Washington was beyond the financial
means of many working women from
the start.
The tea rooms and cozy parlors are
now gone, but it is possible for a
woman to get a room there for $91 a
week, provided she has someone to
share the twin-bedded space. A
single with running water costs $105
a week, with private bath, $140. Rates
apply for stays of at least two weeks
Webster Apartments on West 34th Street in Manhattan:
In 1923, Charles Webster, a partner in Macy's,
and a maximum of four. It is one of
the few women's residences that
shows no sign of becoming co-ed.
"People deserve the right of choice,"
says Carroll. "A woman is entitled to
choose to live in a single-sex environ-
ment." The place, he admits, is profit-
able. "We're usually filled to capac-
ity."
Losing Ground
Demand or not, the last decade has
witnessed conversions at the Barbi-
zon, Longacre and East End hotels
from women's houses to luxury, two-
sex residenees. Many fear that the Al-
lerton on East 57th Street is next. The
owner cleared one floor of the build-
ing a year ago and opened a bridge
club that has been a source of anxiety
for many of the older, permanent resi-
dents. "Security is lax," says Lucy. "A
man comes in and says he's going to
the bridge club. I've seen men walk-
ing around the building and I don't
like it." Although the owners haven't
submitted formal plans to convert ,
rumors have rippled through the
building causing women to become
scared and move.
The Baptists Residence for Women
on East 53rd St. is also headed for
oblivion. The owners are trying to sell
the building but are being forced by
the Community Board and office of
the attorney general to find a non-
profit buyer. But meanwhile, the resi-
dence is warehousing vacant rooms
and is about half full. Although the
Baptist Residence will remain a re-
source for low and moderate income
people once it changes hands, the
sales requirement does not stipulate
that the home be maintained exclu-
Sively for women.
"Most women's hotels are in areas
that are now ripe for development,"
notes Judith Spektor, director of the
Mayor's Office of SRO Housing until
this past January. "Despite their being
profitable, the amount of dollars to
be made in luxury conversions can
never match their normal operating
income as women's hotels."
The clientele for all women's resi-
dences has also changed. Although
many women still seek the security
and privacy of an all-female domain,
others rebel at the rules, curfews and
religious ambiance of most homes. It
is an ambiance that conjures images
of a past world. A book prepared for
the centennial of the Ladies Christian
Union states: "If you overlook such
things as radios and televisions, you
can picture the Civil War period and
the Victorian Era, the hoop-skirted
age when the Ladies Christian Union
(LCU) became a living reality."
The three residences run by the
LCU are immaculate. Roberts House
on East 36th St. is an 85-room house
with a large sitting room, piano,
couches, chairs and antique tables
and knick-knacks. Huge paintings of
George Washington and LCU founder
Mrs. Marshall O. Roberts decorate the
walls. All three homes are filled to
capacity and maintain long waiting
lists for the 15 to 25-year-olds they
accept as residents even though strict
rules apply. Women cannot stay for
more than three years or less than
three months. Male visitors can be
seen only in public sitting rooms.
"We give them a start,low rent and
food until they can get oil their feet
and afford their own apartments,"
says Olive Pagano, live-in director of
LCU's Katherine House. "Within
three years a girl should be promoted,
make more money and be able to get
her own apartment. "
The Price of Security
The Salvation Army also runs two
women's residences. According to
Major Harold Anderson, "Our mis-
sion is to bring a Christian home at-
mosphere, which means cleanliness,
The comfort and security of women's residences make them an
important housing resource for old and young alike.
a spirit of goodness and godliness.
The Salvation Army is a church, a
religious and charitable organization.
Our good work comes from the good
spirit we have found in the Lord."
Like LCU residences, the Salvation
Army's are always full. Rates range
from $78 to $146 a week including
two meals a day and there's no time
limitation on residency. They do not
advertise. Most tenants are students
referred to them by school housing
offices or by word-of-mouth.
Sharon, a six-month resident in a
Salvation Army home, likes her life
there: "It's great, really well kept. The
people are nice, the security is good
and it's in a pretty neighborhood. I
had just moved here from Texas. I had
no furniture, so it's really handy in
settling into New York. It's so hard to
find an apartment."
The 26-year-old woman would pre-
fer fess stringent rules. "I prefer hav-
ing options. I wish they were different
about having men in the rooms, for
example. I prefer not having someone
else's code of ethics on me."
Women in other residences are
more critical. St. Mary's Residence on
East 72nd st. has been run by the
Daughters of Divine Charity since
1913. All residents pay $70 per week
($75 for private bath), but get no
meals. Sylvia is particularly critical
of the management of the place, as
well as rules which she considers in-
fantilizing and unnecessary.
"I pay rent for my room," she ex-
plains. "If I want someone to sleep
in a sleeping bag, why shouldn't I be
able to have them stay in my room?
If I rent an apartment I don't have to
pay the landlord for ovemildlt
guests." St. Mary's charges a $151ee
for overnight guests.
She is also distressed by what she
calls the nun's hypocrisy. "They have
no compassion for working women.
They feel we make a lot of money.
They are talking about kicking any-
one earning more than $20,000 a year

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The first women's hotel was bought by wealthy women who
were incensed that they couldn't rent a room without a man.
A candy and newspaper stand in the gracious lobby of the Martha Washington Hotel on East 29th Street:
Wilen its doors ope'!ed in 1903, it was tile first IIote' just far women.
out of here. You try to explain to them
about taxes-$20,000 is $12,000 if
you're a single person. They don't pay
taxes so they don't understand this.
They nag at us for cooking. Tell us to
do only light cooking. The nuns live
here, just like we do, but they have a
cook, someone to clean up their kitch-
ens, people who clean their rooms
and no real work load. We have to
shop, prepare and cook on a two-
burner stove - 20 of us on a floor. The
church will always take care of them,
they don't need to worry about getting
older or getting sick. "
Sylvia's anger was triggered two
and a half years ago when she and
other long-term tenants at St. Mary's
were told they had to leave because
of a rule that no one stay beyond four
years-always on the books but until
then never enforced. Twenty-two
women and their lawyers have
stopped the plan yet a feeling of vague
uncertainty and distrust of the nuns
is a constant undercurrent.
What Women Want
For all their shortcomings and in-
adequacies, women's residences con-
tinue to be an important housing re-
source-too important to lose.
"Many women seek out this kil!d of
housing, " says Anne Teicher of the
East Side SRO Legal Services. "They
feel it's important in terms of safety
and comfort to be in an all-women's
environment. "
Teicher feels that many of the
charitable institutions that run
women's residences are too restric-
tive. "None see the need to provide
housing as a mission. They see their
mission as protecting young women.
But many age groups of women wallt
to stay in these settings. Yes, there is
a need for young women, but there is
also a need for middle-aged and older
women. They aren't seen as needy by
these charitable institutions."
What is needed, say housing ac-
tivists with a feminist perspective, is
recognition that providing dwelling
space exclusively for women but
without all institutional or punitive
air is an essential component of
sound city planning.
"We're not saying that separate liv-
ing is right for every woman," states
Jill, a tenant at St. Mary's. "But for
those of us who want this lifestyle"
who want the company of lots of
other women, but don't want the has-
sle of an apartment and furniture and
bills and the worry about lack of
safety in most apartment buildings-
there should be some consideration.
It seems stupid that we're ignored."
Clearly, the waiting lists at each of
the nonprofit residences bear out the
overwhelming need. So does the fact .
that more costly women's hotels are
always full. "Living in a shared com-
munity is not considered to be of
value," concludes Teicher. "It's only
seen as an appropriate lifestyle for
young women, not full adults."
Perhaps we need to go back to 1909
and take our direction from Mary
Mortimer Maxwell. She called for cre-
ation of residences "where women
are treated as responsible, sensible,
self-respecting human beings, that is
to say, where they are treated as
though they were morally and intel-
lectually the equals of their brother
man."D
Eleanor Bader has worked with the
East Side SRO Legal Services and is
currently on staff at the Guardian.
RESOURCE READINGS
Mal. ing Room: Hbmen and
Architecture
Special issue of Heresies,
A Femi'nist Publication on Art
and Politics, (Issue 11, $4.25).
The inspiration for this issue came
from a realization that "the history and
practice of architecture have ig-
nored ... the lives, needs, aspirations,
work and creativity of women." The
editorial collective has assembled an
important array of articles that deal
with both the physical facets of plan-
ning as it does or doesn't meet women's
needs, and the more theoretical under-
pinnings of the 'man-made' world in
which women must live. The selection
includes "The Woman's Common-
wealth: A Nineteenth-Century Experi-
ment," by architect Gwendolyh
Wright; "The Passing of the Home in
Great American Cities," by early
feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman;
and a profile of the Women's Develop-
ment Corporation, founded in Provi-
dence, Rhode Island by architects Kat-
rin Adams, Susan E. Aitcheson and
Joan Forrester Sprague.
Heresies, P.O. Box 776, Canal st. Sta-
tion, NY, NY 10013.0
Hbmen and Environments A three
times yearly magazine of the Centre
for Urban and Community Studies of
the University of Toronto and the Fac-
ulty of Environmental Studies at York
University. It is an invaluable resource
providing reports on activities and
programs in planning, architecture
and development from a distinctly
woman's perspective. Though a Cana-
dian effort, the editors have an interna-
tional view that brings the U.S. and
Third World countries into the picture.
The most recent issue, Fall 1985, con-
tains an article on women and home-
ownership, aging women in rural soci-
ety and property ownership by women
in developing countries. Each
magazine also contains wonderful cap-
sule reviews of books, articles and
other reference material as well as lists
of conferences and networking notes
on groups and individuals doing re-
lated work.
Subscriptions are $9lindividuals, $15/
institutions; back issues $3. Women
and Environments, clo Centre for
Urban and Community Studies, 455
Spa dina Ave., Rm 426, Toronto, On-
tario M5S 2GB.D
Urban Neighborhoods, Networls
and Families: New Forms for Old
Va.Iues by Peggy Wireman (Lexington,
Mass.: D.C. Heath, 1984.) The tradi-
tional nuclear family is no longer the
only type, and actually is in the minor-
ity. Wireman looks at the way neighbor-
hood support systems are, changing or
should change to serve the needs ' of
new communities of women and their
children. Wireman gives a description
of one such new community called
Warren Village in Denver, Colorado
which provides alternative housing for
single parent families.O
Hbmen and the American City ed.
Stimpson, Dixler, Nelson, Yatrakis.
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1981) Three of the editors were af-
filiated with Signs, Journal of Women
in Culture and Society from which ar-
ticles in this anthology were gleened.
The theme: social and spatial structure
of cities presents women with special
problems and require a new vision of
a nonsexist urban environment. The
23 articles range from "Crime, Women
and the Quality of Urban Life," to
"Breaking Down Barriers: Women in
Urban Management. "0
25th Anniversary Benefit Concert
Coalition fOr the Homeless
Thesday, March 18, 1986
Minskoff Theatre
Tickets: $75, $250, $500
For ticket orders, call (212) 473-0247
REVIEWS
Catching Up to the Present
REDESIGNING THE AMERICAN
DREAM: The Future of Housing,
Work, and Family Life, by Dolores
Hayden, Norton, 1984, 270 pp.
$17.95
Architect, planner and teacher Dolore. Hayden:
Her talent is in her visionary experimentation with
social needs applied to planning.
THERE HAS BEEN NO DEARTH OF
architects and planners over the last
hundred years to cast a critical eye
on the design of buildings and layout
of cities and suburbs. These profes-
sionals want to believe their ideas
can transform people and the very
social order. Le Corbusier, parap-
hrased by Hayden said "that the
choice for the twentieth century was
architecture or revolution and an-
ilOunced ' revolution can be a-
voided.'" Lenin' s 'new man', Du
Champ' s attempt to reform morals
through spatial planning and Frank
Lloyd Wright's 'design for modern
living' are a few examples of archtec-
tural ideas that sought to solve all the
world's ills. Utopia has ranged from
peaked-roofed, multi-family con-
dominiums to high-rises with 1,200
people and roof-top day care.
. Dolores Hayden, a professor of ar-
chitecture and urban planning at
UCLA, looks at these and other grand
plans in her latest book, Redesigning
the American Dream. She applies
two harsh criteria: namely the cur-
rent housing crisis and feminist
theory. Seeing so much wrong in al-
most everything that has guided
planning and design, she offers her
criticisms and and a framework for
the future.
You might expect that a planner
and acadE!IJ.lic fro!ll California cannot
understand the real chaos and des-
peration of the housing situation; that
she will reveal a blind spot in her
zeal to right wrongs with an over-
simplistic formula. Instead, the most
cynical anti-planner and scrappiest .
tenant organizer will be pleasantly
surprised to see that Hayden includes
issues of class, race, and the
economic underpinnings of women's
position-such as consumerism.
Most important, she acknowledges
the impossibility of applying one
physical or social solution for
_eyeryolle . . ..
The inchlsiveness of her work, in
fact, might make the reader frus-
trated. Hayden takes the broadest
possible definition of the constructed
environment including the barely-
disguised pornography in billboard
advertising and the American Dream
itself, typified by sanitized
homogeneous suburbs. Hype and ob-
solete dreams are the elements of en- .
vironment that are doing us in, she
says. I wonder at Hayden's reasons
for bringing up criticisms that are
true but by now hardly fresh. The
' American Dream' has long been a
synonym for despair.
Public vs. Private
Hayden justifies her choice of
broad social criticism, however,
when she identifies the root cause of
our current difficulties with housing
and the environment. The problem
is the division between public and
private life. The schism has effec-
tively eliminated the possibility of
integration between social, paid
labor enterprise and the domestic do-
main of women. Conversely, the nur-
turing functfons:"::"'- raIsing children,
care of the old, and other home-
based, unpaid work-are spurned by
the "important" work-a-day business
world. The split has left us with
phoney, derivative home designs and
only the pretense of a satisfying
urban fabric
Most architectural and planning
models stem from the symbol of
home as a "sacred hut," a term
Hayden coins to convey how out-
dated is the notion of single family,
detached house as a haven for the
male w o r ~ e r . Today's typical family
BY SUSAN HAMOVITCH
is a far cry from the nuclear model
of working husband and housewife
at home with children; and besides,
soaring real estate values put home-
ownership out of reach for many.
The scope of the problems she
identifies allows her a basis for criti-
Cism, suggestions and to paint partial ;
solutions. The noble vision of classic
democracy is at the root of her own . .
She quotes Walt Whitman, "A great
city is where the slave ceases and the
master of slaves ceases," and pro-
ceeds to extoll a few other. 19th social
reformers like Jane Adams and Frank
Olmstead. The latter linked public
landscape with social programs.
Another, Melusina Fay Pierce, im-
plemented one of the first coopera-
tive housework schemes. It is the so-
cial, the paid, the real entering the
domestic parts of life that have
heretofore been closeted and denig-
rated.
Integrating Concepts
Hayden consistently incorporates
the economic with the architectural.
Housing must be planned with jobs
nearby. To make homes affordable
and lastlng, they should be well-
landscaped and located with climac-
tic and ecological conditions in
mind. Childcare should be incorpo-
rated into a housing design that also
includes the elderly as part of the
community. Hayden' s message,
emerging slowly through example
and anecdote, is that no one factor
should edge ahead of the other. In
spatial terms, these requisites trans-
late into some fascinating recommen-
dations. One of the book's most per-
tinent observations was that "cour-
tyard housing is the strongest typo-
logical response to the need to bal-
ance privacy and community." How
many mothers have experienced the
sense of community that arises when
children can be let out the back door
to a carefree play area easily observed
from kitchen windows? "Those were
the happiest days of my life," a friend
of mine said of the time when she
was raising her daughter alone while
attending school. This and similar
ideas are not the single answer to the
double-shift day for women but they
point in a realizable direction.
The only complaint I had in read-
ing Hayden's critique of mainstream
planning is that it rode so high on a
wave of generality and idealism. The
particular plight of single mothers
today who make up the vast majority
of the poor is not addressed in all its
complexity. While Hayden notes that
"by the year 2,000 the U.S. will need
20 million more units to accommo-
date new households - 70 to 80 per-
cent estimated to be single parent or
. Q.ne person households," she posits
only a two-sentence, summary solu-
tion: "new approaches1:o their hous-
ing should be coordinated with jobs,
. services, transportation and land-
scaping. For this coordination to be
effective, new accounting processes
are necessary to assess the real costs
and benefits of choices about nurtur-
ing, earning and the built environ-
ment."
built in Stockholm, 1935:
Arcltitects S"en Marlce/ius and Alva Myrdal put a restaurant and cltild care center on tlte first Roor-
The root cause of so much of the
current housing crisis she sees as tied
to sexual politics. But she doesn't
subject her own argument to the pre-
scription she describes. If the low
value placed on mothering is a global
problem for women, affecting income
and quality of child care, ids also
one of the hardest to turn around.
From Hayden's we see
. only one failed attempt after another
to bring mothers into the workforce
with ease. In the Soviet Union,
I as integral components.
women are still saddled with the
domestic work after . the eight-hour
day; in Cuba, factories employing
women in residential neighborhoods
pay the lowest wages; and in China,
daycare is one of the lowest paid jobs.
The "choices about nurturing, earn-
ing" are influenced by economic
forces that in turn are shaped by those
in power who value other things
more than child care, for one. These
same forces and law makers con-
demn single mothers to near-certain .
poverty and reward those who raise
children in marriage. Redesigning
the American Dream lacks a
thorough-going and consistent un-
derstanding of the extent to which
sexist, agist and racist values mold
economic priorities and, con-
sequently, the built environment.
But visions and enthusiasm for ex-
perimentation are Hayden's talent
and should not be dampened by a
sour it-will-never-happen attitude.
What her book offers is an urban pol-
icy rendering of a masculine/
feminine divide, long recognized in
feminist social criticism as a source
of women's oppression and a threat
to the world at large. If personal and
political empowerment are still well
out of most women's reach today, we
now have a new model home. It's up
us to furpish it.D
Susan Hamovitch is currently coor-
dinating a project for homeless
families with the Puerto Rican As-
sociation for Community Affairs in
Manhattan.
QUALITY ACCOUNTING
SERVICES AT A
LOW COST
We Offer The Followinl Senices:
Year End Corporate Tax Filings (Example : Forms 990,
1120, G750 etc . Quarterly Payroll Tax Filings (Example :
Forms 941, IA5, 940 etc . Computerized Bookkeeping
Services, such as Write-Up of Cash Receipts, Cash Disburse-
ments, General Ledger etc . Management Services Including
Accounting Systems Design. Preparation of Quarterly and
Year End Financial Reports for Management Decisions
Budget Preparation. Bookkeeping Review and Advice
Emergency
Deadline
filing Our
Specialty
Preparation of Financial Statements. Preparat ion of Finan-
cial Reports for Outside Sources. Bookkeeping Clean-Up Work
Budget Accounting Servlc
387 Park Avenue South/8th Aoor
New York, NY 10016
(718)
Mr. Jeffrey Victor
RESOURCES/EVENTS
REPAIR: The Society for the
Preservation of Weeksville and Bed-
ford-Stuyvesant History is offering
free home repair workshops. On
March 11 the workshop will cover
floor and stair restoration; March 22
exterior wood and trim repair. The
Society is also presenting a seminar
on how to preserve and restore your
neighborhood. For reservations or
further information contact Paula
Wilson, 718-756-5250.0
FILMS: The
Museum of Natural History is pre-
senting a series of anthropological
films on New York City neighbor-
hoods. March 3: Jackson Heights and
Chinatown; March 10: Williamsburg;
March 17: Harlem; March 24: Little
Italy. Call (212) 873-7507 for further
details.O
HOUSING MOVE-
MENT: "Another Side of Brooklyn's
Renaissance: The Community
ing Movement," a photographic and
video exhibit, is on display at the
Brooklyn Union Gas Building, 195 ,
Montague Street. Presented by the
Brooklyn Historical Society, the
show documents the work of the
borough's 30 community-based
housing organizations and includes
over 100 photographs along with a
10-minute videotape. The show will
continue through mid-March.O
HOUSING: The Na-
tional Housing Law Project an-
nounces its Fourth Annual Seminar
on Syndicating Affordable Housing.
The national conference will
examine such subjects as how a real
estate tax shelter works, tax benefits
for lower-income housing, structur-
ing a transaction to meet project
needs, the current status of tax reform
proposals, when syndication is feas-
ible and alternative ways to raise
equity dollars. The conference will
take place April 21 & 22 at the Miyako
Hotel in San Francisco and April 28
& 29 at the Rosslyn Hotel in Ar-
lington, Virginia. For more informa-
tion write to: Syndication Seminar,
National ijousing Law Prof'ect, 1950
Addison Street, Berke ey, CA
94704.0
ABUSE: The 'East
Harlem Community Against Drugs,
Inc., is planning a conference in early
April focusing on issues related to
substance abuse and housing. All in-
terested speakers, writers, friends
and neighbors are invited to contact
EHCAD, P.O. Box 741, New York, NY
10029: or call (212) 427-3960.0
OOMEsnC VIOLENCE: Third
World Newsreel has released a one-
hour documentary, "To Love, Honor
and Obey," focusing on domestic vio-
lence against women from all social
and economic strata. The film in-
cludes women talking about their ex-
periences as well as responses from
health workers, counselors, nurses,
police, lawyers and others. The vid-
eo 'cassette can be purchased for $75
plus $10 handling. Contact Third
World Newsreel at (212) 947-9277 for
more information. 0
GUIDE: The Com-
munity Council of Greater New York
has issued a guide to emergency ser-
vices in New York City. The Guide
for Emergency Services in New York
City: Shelter, Food, Clothing, and .
Other Related Services, December,
1985 presents information about
public and voluntary services in all
five boroughs. Designed for easy re-
ference use, the guide includes such
specialized topics as Abused Women
and Their Children, AIDS, Runaway/
Homeless Youth and Substance
Abuse. The guide costs $3.50 per
copy and can be ordered from ,Ernest
Mucci, Community Council of
Greater New York, 275 Seventh Av-
enue, 12th Floor, New York, NY
10001.0
FOR LAND: Practical sol-
utions to financing community land
trusts will be the focus of the School
of Living conference on June 6-8. A
variety of workshops and resources
covering the why's and how-to's of
community land trusts will be pre-
sented, including tax and legal as-
pects and ecological land use. Costs
are on a sliding scale from $65-$85.
For more information call (301) 343-
0280; or write Heathcote Community
Conference Center, Attn: Land Trust,
21300 Heathcote Rd., Freeland, MD
210553.0
OF CITIES: The National
Endowment for the Arts has desig-
nated the new grant category, "Na-
tional Theme: Design of Cities," as
an area of special concern. The En-
dowment has also introduced a new
comprehensive funding category
called Design Advancement. For de-
tailed information on these grants,
write to Design Arts Program, Na-
tional Endowment for the Arts, 1100
Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.,
Washington, D.C. 20506.0
LIMITS: City Limits has en-
tered the broadcast age. Tune in to
WBAI-FM (99.5) for a news commen-
tary by City Limits on Friday even-
ings during the 7 p.m. newscast. 0
VIOLENCE: A discus-
sion of approaches to preventing and/
or handling violence in the home,
neighborhood and culture will be
conducted on March 20. Part of the
Organizers' Coffee House Series at
Hunter College, participants will ex-
plain their organization's efforts in a
discussion facilitated by Irma Rod-
riguez. The program will begin at 7
p.m. and costs $3 ($1 for ECCO mem-
bers). The Hunter College School of
Social Work is located at 129 E. 79th
St. For more information call 570-
5064 or 570-5037.0
REPORTS: Clinton-area
housing organizations have created a
computer database to provide acti-
vists working in the community with
up-tQ-date statistical information.
The Clinton Housing Inventory Pro-
gram (CHIP) stores such facts as block
and lot numbers, harassment com-
plaints, fire history, owner's and
agent's names, and records of viola-
tions and tax payments. The database
can generate customized reports ex-
amining trends in sales of buildings
in a predefined area, lists of current
and past owners of buildings in the
area, block status breakdowns and C
Violations lists indicating the build-
ings in worst condition in the com-
munity. For more information, call
Tad Stahnke at (212) 541-5996.0
- - - - - ~ - - - - ~ - ~ - ~
WORKSHOP
Graduate Program in Urban Affairs at Hunter College,
with a special emphasis on neighborhood development,
is now accepting applications for Fall, 1986. Community
leaders, tenant and community organizers, program per-
sonnel, social service providers, religious activsts and re-
cent college graduates will find that this unique advanced
degree program offers an opportunity for in-depth study
of specific issues relative to one's work and may open
doors to mid-career changes. The master's degrees is
usually concluded in two semesters and a summer ses-
sion. Part-time study can be facilitated for those working
full-time. Present tuition for a 15-credit semester for New
York State residents is $950 plus fees; financial aid is
available. For more information contact Hans Spiegel,
Director, Graduate Program in Urban Affairs, Hunter Col-
lege, 695 Park Avenue, W 1611 , New York, -NY 10021.
COMMUNITY ORGANIZER: Responsibilities include as-
sisting area residents in forming tenant associations, ad-
vise residents on housing laws and regulations, as well
as procedures and policies of governmental agencies and
housing court, organizing housing workshops. Qualifica-
tions: minimum 2 years educational background or previ-
ous experience in organizing, community relations, tenant!
landlord counseling, negotiation or related field. Knowl-
edge of housing issues, laws, complaint procedures im-
portant. Good communications and conflict mediation
skills needed. ASSISTANT AREA SAFETY COOR-
DINATOR: Responsiblities include coordination of out-
reach/recruitment of volunteers for Civilian Observation
Patrol (COP). Qualifications: BA and minimum 1 year
experience or H.S. graduate (or equivalent) and minimum
3 years experience in community organizing. Experience
working with or coordinating volunteer programs. Good
written and verbal communications skills. Some evening
hours required. Salary: Mid-teens. ADMINISTRATIVE
ASSISTANT: Responsiblities include administrative and
clerical duties associated with a community based Area
Safety/Anti-Crime Program, extensive telephone and mail
follow-up on volunteers of program. Qualifications:Good
typing skills, good telephone manners a must. H.S.
graduate with some college experience. Community resi-
dent preferred. SEND RESUMES FOR ALL THREE
JOBS LISTED ABOVE TO :Executive Director, PACC,
201 DeKalb Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11205.
City agency charged with responsibilities of code enforce-
ment and protection of tenanats seeks to hire two posi-
tions: 1) OPERATIONS SPECIALIST assists unit man-
ager in running code enforcement operations, including
developing and maintaining computerized data base,
scheduling inspections, drafting correspondence and re-
ports. Salary $17,097 to $22,000 depending on experi-
ence. 2) HOUSING MONITOR coordinates multi-agency
inspections of hotels, housing displaced families, seeks
correction of conditions and monitors enforcement follow-
up. Salary: $17,097 to $18,333 depending on experience.
EOE/M/F/HN/. Contact Crystal: 566-7334.
PROJECT DIRECTOR: Vanderbuilt Ave. Commercial Re-
vitalization Project-from Atlantic Ave. to Plaza St. ; Im-
mediate employment(beginning of March); Qualifications:
marketing, planning and financial background preferred;
good communications skills. Salary: $23,000 plus be-
nefits. Send resume to: Prospect Heights Neighborhood
Corporation, 388 St. Johns Pl. , Brooklyn, NY 11221; or
call Otis L. Williams, exec. dir. : (718) 783-0192, or (718)
638-2435.
COMMUNITY ORGANIZER/HOUSING SPECIALIST.
The Metro North Association, a community based housing
and educational agency in East Harlem is looking for a
community organizer/housing specialist. Responsiblllti ..
include: working with neighborhood tenants to inform
them of and help them organize to defend their rights,
acting as liason to existing tenant organizations and other
agencies involved in housing in East Harlem; developing
outreach programs to tenants in public housing; aSSisting
tenants groups in their dealings with legal issues, gov-
ernmental agencies, and financial matters; researching
conditions of neighborhood housing, developing programs
to raise neighborhood awareness of housing issues, writ-
ing fundraising proposals to further community organizing
goals. Qualifications: Assertive dynamic, imaginative in-
dividual with strong verbal and writing skills; bilingual ; ex-
perienced in working in dfverse groups; knowledge of
neighborhood policies and economics, housing finance
and NYC housing code useful. Area resident ideal. Salary:
To $20,000, depending on experience. Benefits. Send
Resume to Clark Bruno, Executive Director, Metro North
Association, 1960 First Avenue, New York, NY 10029.
DARE
TO COMPARE
CITY LIMITS
Has articles about Donald Trump.
Costs $2 per copy.
Read by honest, hardworking New Yorkers who
want a better deal from their city.
Tells you who's fighting gentrification in the East
Village.
Hailed by community organizers, tenant leaders
and rap musicians for its coverage of issues that
matter.
VA
THE
r u ~ ~ N
fHEYCOULD
1AVE DANCED
4LLNIGHT
VANITY FAIR
Has articles about Donald Trump.
Costs $2 per copy.
Read by rich people and those fascinated with same.
Tells you what galleries are hot in the East Village.
Recently described by Alexander Cockburn as a
"32 gallon tub of international white trash."
CITY LIMITS. NEWS FOR THE OTHER NEW YORK.

City Limits Magazine, March 1986 Issue

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City Limits Magazine, March 1986 Issue

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2 CITY LIMITS March 1986

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