-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Session 41 Co-op History Club March 24, 2013
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Historically, the Amalgamated, Shalom Aleichem and another Bronx co-op, the
Allerton Coops all started about the same time, the mid 1920s. The following
story of the early days of the Coops is taken from the three sources listed
at the bottom.]
The first and largest of the cooperatives was the United Worker’s Cooperative
Colony (often referred to as “The Coops” or the “Allerton Coops”) in the Bronx.
It is not only distinguished for its architectural merit, but is also
historically significant as one of the most important of the non-profit
cooperative housing complexes built in New York City during the 1920s. The
two-square-block colony, erected in two construction campaigns (1926-27 and
1927-29), was built by the United Workers’ Association, a group which was at
the forefront of the cooperative housing movement. Composed primarily of
secular Jewish needle-trade workers with communist political leanings, the
group sought to improve living conditions for its members and to create a
vibrant community of socially and politically active individuals. The
Association erected its buildings in an undeveloped region of the Bronx,
adjacent to the open space of Bronx Park. The new apartment houses were
designed to meet high standards, with apartment layouts, open space, and
amenities rivaling and, in some instances, surpassing those provided in
contemporary middle-class housing. The Colony encouraged cooperative activity
in all aspects of life and was therefore equipped with classrooms, a library,
a gymnasium, and other facilities for social interaction. The first complex,
built in 1926-27, is a fine example of traditional neo-Tudor design with
unusual ornamentation reflective of the Colony’s political and social ideals;
it was designed by Springsteen & Goldhammer, an important firm involved in
progressive housing projects in the Bronx. The second complex, built in
1927-29, was designed in an avant-garde architectural mode inspired by
Northern European Expressionist architecture; it is a significant work by
Herman Jessor, an architect who was to become the most prolific designer of
non-profit cooperative buildings in New York City. Together the Colony’s
complexes housed over 700 families. These quality, cooperatively-owned
residences, in which all members had an equal voice in management and were
prohibited from selling apartments at a profit, represent the efforts of an
idealistic group of primarily young Eastern European Jewish immigrants to
provide affordable housing that would be an alternative to the tenements of
the Lower East Side. Although financially the Colony failed, architecturally
and socially it was a success.(1)
The United Workers was founded in 1913, when a group of Jewish workers leased
a small tenement on East 13th Street and initiated a housing cooperative,
which included a cooperative kitchen and a cultural program with readings,
discussions, and invited lecturers and entertainers. The political stance of
the leadership appears at that time to have been Zionist and territorialist in
relation to the Jewish homeland issue. Over the next years, the group grew
larger and leaned politically toward communism, especially after the Russian
Revolution. After some years, they rented a larger apartment building in
Harlem. A cooperative cafeteria was opened on Second Avenue, which included a
library, and publication of a magazine was initiated. In 1924 a summer retreat,
Camp Nigedaiget (“No Worries”) was founded at Beacon, New York, on a large
tract of land bordering the Hudson River. Finally, in 1925, plans were begun
for the new Bronx housing complex, which was completed over the next several
years with a total of 697 apartments. The project included cooperative stores,
a restaurant, a day-care center, and a library of books on political thought
in English, Yiddish, and Russian.
In general, the monthly cost in the cooperatives was said to represent a
savings of 25 percent over the private market. Additional savings were accrued
through other cooperative enterprises. For example, the Coops, the Shalom
Aleichem Houses, and the Amalgamated all had cooperative stores which offered
groceries and filled other daily needs at reduced cost. In the case of the
Coops and the Amalgamated, these were large enterprises, with extensive
separate buildings. All of the projects provided day care and education
programs for young children, giving an economic advantage to parents, who
could each work. Beginning in 1929, the Amalgamated as well as the Workers
Cooperative Colony developed a summer camp for children. The summer camps
included adults and provided families with the possibility of a holiday which
might normally have been out of the question for their economic strata.(2)
Most of the idea of The Coops took shape during getaways to Camp Nitgedeiget,
Yiddish for, loosely, “Don’t Worry Be Happy”, a kind of carefree and spirited
camp that the workers owned in upstate Beacon, New York.
The workers would pool their life savings to buy shares ($250 per room) in
the cooperative that would be their dream home. They wanted light, lots of
light, a window in every room and trees and gardens. An architect would
design all of that for them, including a hammer, sickle and compass on the
mantle above the doorway of building “J”. (It is still there.)
The original founders of the Coops would come up to the Bronx by subway.
Land in the Bronx was cheap and wide open. The archival photo of the patch
of land they bought made me gasp — so hard to visualize a busy street like
Allerton Avenue so open and overgrown with weeds.
When the workers moved into the Coops it fulfilled their dreams of being
in beautiful surroundings and they lived a very communal life there. The
basement was the hub of social activity with club rooms for youth
gatherings, a library and reading room, day care center, a communal
cafeteria, rooms where the musicians could jam and “shules” where
lessons were taught in Yiddish after school.
And no matter what, they could never be kicked out. The Coops had a
policy that no one would lose their apartment for not being able to meet
rent payments. All of their board meetings were held in Yiddish. And they
argued and fought bitterly all the time. On politics: Stalin’s pact with
Hitler, Khrushchev’s revelation of Stalin’s mass murders.They would find
their communist ideologies continually challenged, creating chasms in the
Coops that would never be resolved.
But they were incredibly aware of injustices to people around them and
jumped into protest and strike. When tenants in the building next door
were being evicted, Coops residents joined in the efforts to block the
police from pulling the tenants from their apartment with the women
acting as human barricades. . . .
Religion was not important to them. May Day, International Workers’ Day
was very important to them. Jewish holidays were not. And for some,
neither was marriage. Coops resident Amy Galstuck Swerdlow said that her
parents never married, believing that a marriage certificate was
meaningless. . . .
The people in the Coops, including the children, were well aware of the
injustices toward Black Americans. They knew of the lynchings of black
men in the South and were in solidarity with the Scottsboro Boys, nine
black boys accused of raping two white women while travelling on a
freight train in 1931. In fact, William Patterson, an attorney who
represented the boys was a member of the American Communist party and
a frequent visitor to the Coops. . . .
In the 1930s they encouraged a small number of Black families to move
into the Coops. This was quite revolutionary at the time, as Blacks
and Whites did not live in the same building in New York, nor anywhere
else in America in the 30s, 40s nor 50s. (Parkchester, for example,
would not become integrated until the 1970s.) . . . Coops residents
took buses up to Peekskill, New York to hear Paul Robeson sing. . . .
The outdoor concert was met by the locals shouting anti-semitic and
anti-black rants and stone throwing. . . The riot that ensue[d is
even retold today] . . . by the residents who were there. . . .
In 1943, they were confronted with a critical decision about the future
of the Coops. They had taken out a $2 million mortgage and now found
themselves unable to pay. . . . (The Coops was greatly underfunded from
the beginning. ) Each resident would be required to pay $1 more per
room. If they voted yes to the increase, they would maintain ownership
of the Coops. If they voted nay, then they would lose ownership forever.
This was a hotly debated issue. . . .
The rationale for the decision they finally make is quite fascinating.
Perhaps they recognized the Coops as an experiment that had run its
course. Or maybe they felt they had seen their dream come to fruition,
but recognized that it required a different level of cultivation than
they were equipped to commit to. [The majority voted 'No' to the rent
increase arguing that they owed it the other renters in NYC to keep
their rent low as an example for others to aim for.]
The parallels between what they faced and what we today face couldn’t
be more clear:
A nation in financial crises. Home foreclosures. An overstuffed
mortgage that can no longer be carried. A look toward FDR’s New Deal
for answers and influence. A shortage of affordable housing for the
working poor. Urban housing for low income families with trees,
greenery and parks.
Sixty-six years [in 2009] later, all of these issues remain
headlines in our nation’s papers.
And are critical issues right here in the Bronx.
================================================================
Sources:
(1) NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission,
http://www.bldgdb.com/allerton-coops
(2) A History of Housing in New York City by Richard Plunz, 1990
(3) "Finding Utopia in the Bronx"
http://bronxbohemian.wordpress.com/2009/04/27/finding-utopia-in-the-bronx/,
April 27, 2009