USA > New York > New York City > New York panorama : a comprehensive view of the metropolis > Part 45
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Steps forward have been taken in this country. The Public Works Ad- ministration of the Federal Government was given $123,000,000 in 1933 for
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low-rent housing; and on the strength of a promise of $25,000,000 Nevthe York City set up a Housing Authority early in 1934, with Langdon Withud Post, head of the Tenement House Department, as chairman. The Authoraf ity was charged with three duties: (1) investigating housing and livingin conditions throughout the city, (2) clearing congested areas, and (3) con pu structing and operating low-rent housing. In fulfilling its first task, the Authority directed 6,000 Civil Works Administration workers in taking a1H inventory of real property-the biggest task of the kind since William thupo Conqueror compiled the Domesday Book. The data collected in this eighth months survey served as the basis for a long-term housing program recom liss mended by the Authority. This program involves the expenditure of $150-ip 000,000 each year for ten years, and the re-housing of 1,320,000 Newio Yorkers. Such a construction job, if ever carried through, would represen about one-tenth of the capacity of the city's building industry during theef 1920's.
In discharging its second duty, during the past four years the Authority y has used work-relief labor in demolishing old structures having a tota q frontage of about eight miles. Never able to get its hands on the $25,000, li ooo promised from PWA funds, it has done little in the construction of low-rent housing. By shoe-string promotion, and with the aid of State and r Federal work-relief labor, the Authority does have one development to it: i credit. First Houses, replacing slum property on Avenue A and Third Street mostly owned by Vincent Astor, was ready for occupancy by its 122 families on July 1, 1936. Its coverage is 41.6 percent on the street level. and 36.5 percent for the higher stories. The average monthly rental a room is $6.05. It would take more than 4,000 such developments to care for the 500,000 families living in the slums.
The Authority also had a hand in two demonstration projects built by the PWA-the Harlem River Houses, near the Macomb Bridge in Upper Harlem, and the Ten Eyck Houses in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, both occu- pied in the fall of 1937. The Ten Eyck Houses, costing approximately $13,500,000, constitute the largest of 51 PWA projects built or being built throughout the country. It has a 12-block site, and consists of 20 four-story apartment buildings and a junior high school, with a park and playground. The Harlem River Houses, built on land bought from John D. Rockefel- ler, cost $4,500,000; on October 7, the last of the 574 Negro families moved into their new quarters. Average monthly rent a room is $7.10, not including a charge for heat and hot water of about $1.50 a room a month.
Applications for apartments in these developments swamped the Au-
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hority; and a strict system of selection was used in admitting the few Wicky tenants. While termed "low-rent housing," such dwellings can be ho fforded only by the middle-income groups. Plans for true low-rent hous- vinng-rooms for families with incomes under $900 a year-have yet to be con ut on paper.
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On September 1, 1937, President Roosevelt approved the United States aHousing Act, creating a permanent Federal Housing Authority with the th ower to make loans and annual contributions or capital grants to local housing authorities for financing low-rent projects. The Authority may om ssue $500,000,000 worth of bonds, guaranteed by the United States, the proceeds to be used for loans during a three-year period. In addition, $26,- e 000,000 may be appropriated for operating expenses and annual grants. en While a stride forward in the history of American housing, this act is in ffect a compromise measure. The Wagner-Steagall bill on which it was ased had provided for about twice the amount of housing over a four- iyear period. Rehabilitation of New York's lower East Side alone would re- quire at least a half billion dollars; and it would take more than 20 bil- , ions to rehabilitate the slums of the nation. As no State may receive more o han 10 percent of the half-billion allocated under the act, the new low- brent housing that can be constructed in New York City from these funds ton the next three years is negligible- at the most, $30,000,000 worth, or some 5,000 units. More than two centuries would be required to rehabili- cate the city's slums at this rate.
But in 1938, five American Labor Party members took seats in the new City Council and five others in the State Assembly. The Party members in ethe Assembly sponsored the Minkoff bill, now enacted into law, which in broad effect prohibits the owner of an old-law tenement or converted dwelling from raising rents in his building unless the latter complies with the provisions of the Multiple Dwelling Law. The American Labor Party (in which Mayor La Guardia is enrolled) is also pledged to a program of low-cost housing for the city. And as the post-war record of European housing shows, no group has a livelier or more sustained interest in abol- ishing the slums than the group that is forced to live in them. y
XXIII. GOVERNMENT
Body Politic®
JACOB LEISLER, a merchant-captain stationed at the fort of New York made in 1689 the first attempt to establish a representative government 10 for the city of New York as part of his plan for governing what was ther. the Province of New York. The provincial government was in no sense a democratic one. All officials were appointed by the royal governors, whose authoritarian rule was resented by the colonists-with the exception, of course, of the landed proprietors, who were its immediate beneficiaries For his purpose Leisler took advantage of the prevailing confusion that resulted from the deposition of the Catholic King James and the ascend. ancy of the Protestants William and Mary of the House of Orange. Gov. ernor Dongan, who was a Catholic and therefore in disfavor, fled; where. upon Leisler, proclaiming allegiance to the new British rulers, seized the fort at New York and called for the formation of a representative govern- ment for the province. He convoked a convention attended by delegates from a number of villages, who spoke for the merchants, supported by mechanics and artisans-as opposed to the former ruling class, the great be landowners, many of whom had never seen their American holdings. A committee of safety composed of ten men was appointed, and with Leisler governed the Province. They established a municipal government for the City of New York; and Peter Delanoy, elected mayor by popular vote of the freeholders, served from October 14, 1689, to March 20, 1691. In the latter year, Leisler's government was deposed and he was hanged as ar traitor. Ta
Under the succeeding regime, the Province was granted the right to convoke an assembly, but the status of the city was restored to that exist- ing before the Leisler uprising. The Crown made a concession to popular government in 1731, when the charter granted by Governor John Mont- gomerie included a provision for the annual election of aldermen and their assistants by vote of the freeholders. These aldermen, with a mayor
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id a controller appointed by the governor, formed the first common coun- I, with legislative powers.
The Revolution made no change in the immediate form of municipal vernment or in its relation to the State government. The mayor was still 1 appointed officer of the State, and suffrage was still limited to free- olders. Political interests were divided sharply between the haves and the ive-nots. The Federalists represented the city gentry and the merchant ass; the Society of St. Tammany represented the poor and underprivi- ged. The latter organization was a survival of a group of patriotic soci- ies effective before and during the war in their espousal of the Revolu- onary cause. Its name was chosen in mockery. The loyalists, or Tories, ad organized in such groups as the St. George Society and the Order of :. Andrew and St. George, pledging fealty to King George III. Deri- vely, the plebeians chose a legendary Indian chieftain as their patron int. The society was more or less identical with the group known as the Liberty boys," politically active in the suppression of Tories immediately ter the war, even to the extent of confiscating their property.
At the close of the 18th century, the political star of the Society of St. ammany dimmed. The Federalists, led by Alexander Hamilton, had rested control of city offices from the "Liberty boys." The method used as simple. Hamilton's party sponsored the cause of the former loyalists, icceeded in having all restrictions against them removed, and thereby ained their votes. Resentment was widespread, as the patriots, many of hom were still deprived of the vote, saw the pre-Revolutionary status be- ig re-established. As a result, the property qualification for male suffrage ecame a deeper cause for dissatisfaction. Revitalized as a semi-fraternal rganization, the Society of St. Tammany or the Columbian Order (Sons f Tammany ) led the movement for popular suffrage. Under Aaron Burr's itelage, the society became a municipal political organization with control f political offices as its goal. Countering the influence of the one bank in The city under Federalist control, Burr used the Bank of the Manhattan Company, which he had established, as a means of "arranging" property qualifications in accordance with the suffrage requirements.
This means of righting a wrong might well be questioned, but the jus- ice of the cause was such that it won to its support an ever-growing sec- ion of the population. Nor was an abstract principle of suffrage the only ssue: it was to the interest of the municipality to broaden the base of sup- ort for what seemed the larger issue, local versus State control. Dissatis- 'action with State dominance grew with the years, stimulated not only by
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the example of New England towns and cities, but also by that of nearb Long Island communities, where a high degree of democratic local gov ernment was accepted. Growth of the city accentuated the contradictio between local needs and State inability or unwillingness to cope with th problems involved. Tammany, which had never renounced its support c universal manhood suffrage although men of property were assumin leadership in the organization, also led the movement against State cor. trol. As a result of Tammany's espousal of both popular movements, th State legislature in 1821 voted for a Constitutional Convention and a ceded to the municipality's demands in one respect: a suffrage amendmer to the Constitution was passed. The effort to gain a greater degree of local control, in a resolution providing for popular election of the mayor an common council, was defeated by one vote. However, the council was at thorized to appoint the mayor, and from 1821 to 1834 six mayors wer thus appointed.
Eight years after the great Tammany victory, its power was threatene by the Workingmen's Party, composed of artisans and mechanics orgar ized in labor societies. This party, maintaining that Tammany no longe represented the interests of the people, advanced a program of social leg islation. In the election of 1829 the new party polled 6,000 votes to Tam many's 11,000, electing one of its candidates, Ebenezer Ford, to the Stat Assembly. The result was a hurried entrance by Tammany into the field c social legislation with the introduction of a Mechanics' Lien Law, calcu lated to abolish many abuses suffered by workmen at the hands of unscri pulous employers. Restored thereby to public favor, Tammany next rod the crest of popular sentiment for a fuller measure of local control, doub less not unmindful of the great political and patronage power that such victory might mean. It led the fight for popular election of the mayor, an in 1834 the city had its first such election since 1690.
In the next decade the population almost doubled, and its needs brough into sharper relief the failure of State control in the administration ( municipal government. Provision for such indispensable services as wate light and sanitation was inadequate; but the inefficiency of the polic force, then known as the Watch Department, was scandalous. The figl against State domination broke out sharply when the mayor and commo council, sensitive to public anger, created a municipal police force und their own authority, instead of accepting one set up by the State legisl ture in 1844. The local force proved a failure, however, and in 1845 th State-authorized department was organized.
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Early in the 1840's, a system of public schools was established under a bard of Education. Other municipal services were taking form-a process celerated when the charter of 1849 was granted, giving more powers to e municipality. Executive power was vested in the mayor and the heads departments. The mayor was still nominally the head of the police de- artment, but a chief of police was given direct responsibility for the de- urtment. The charter further provided for a Department of Finance eaded by a Comptroller, a Department of Streets, a Collector of Assess- ents, a Superintendent of Wharves, a Department of Repairs and Sup- ies, a City Inspector (or Public Health Department), an Alms House epartment and a Law Department. The Department of Streets was arged with the lighting of the city and with "cleaning the public streets, id collecting the revenue arising from the sale of manure." Provision as made for the creation of a Croton Aqueduct Board, responsible for the supply and distribution of water to the City of New York."
The New York City charter of 1849 gave belated recognition to the fact at what in early days was a protective agency had long since become a reat administrative enterprise. The government, of necessity, was forced provide the framework whereby half a million people could live to- ether. That framework-streets, schools, hospitals, transportation facili- es, sewers-had to be built, and no great foresight was needed to see the terally golden opportunity inherent in its construction. In consequence, le 1850's were marked by the pressure of utility entrepreneurs upon lo- il government for valuable concessions. Franchises, charters and incorpo- ition papers were obtained through bribery of members of the Common ouncil. Valuable leases, many granted in perpetuity, were often given ithout the slightest compensation to the city.
Such corrupt practices went hand in hand with the building of a politi- il machine based upon the patronage involved in an extended public serv- je program. The conflict between the State and Tammany was renewed, ut with different connotations. The agitation for local control originally ad a popular base, but was now chiefly a partisan fight for spoils. In two attles in the 1850's, the State forces won. A Metropolitan Police District as established in 1857 under State control, and in the same year a Board f Supervisors was created as a county body vested with supervisory func- ons in Manhattan. By the latter move, the State government adherents ontrolled a body counterposed to the Common Council.
But these added measures of State regulation did little or nothing to revent local political corruption of unprecedented proportions. Within a
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few years after the Civil War, the so-called "Tweed Ring" in New Yorl City plundered the municipality of a sum conservatively estimated a about $75,000,000. Depredations could be made on so large a scale be cause of the new charter that Tweed fostered and forced through the leg islature in 1870. By this charter, State commissions were abolished, and the power of the Board of Aldermen was effectually curtailed. The mayo was given absolute power of appointment; but, what is still more to th point, practically full municipal control was placed in the hands of Board of Special Audit, composed of A. Oakey Hall, Mayor; William M. Tweed, Commissioner of Public Works; Richard B. Connolly, Comptrol ler; and Peter B. Sweeny, President of the Board of Parks. No mone could be drawn from the city treasury without the permission of this body
Although millions were appropriated for municipal services, what th people received for their money was little more than a brazen mockery Sanitary conditions in the city were unbelievably vile. Cholera epidemic swept through the tenements, endangering the entire population. So cor rupt had the political machine become, so injurious to the functioning of municipal government and to business, that a great reform movemer gathered force. Paradoxically, it had an anti-democratic impetus. Its lead ers, some of the most public-spirited men of the time, among them Pete Cooper, opposed the broadening of the base of municipal government b popular election of department heads. Instead, they wanted continuatio of State commission rule, in order to keep control of municipal affairs ou of Tweed's hands.
Two years after passage of the notorious charter of 1870, the sufferin populace rallied under the anti-Tweed banner, and a reform ticket wa swept into office, with William Havemeyer at its head. A new charter, ir tended to correct some of the shortcomings of the previous instrumen was adopted in 1873. The unlimited appointive power of the mayor wa checked. Heads of departments were replaced by boards, the reformists be lieving that board administration would act as an automatic check on ir dividual corruption.
But hopes for permanent reform survived the efficient Havemeyer ac ministration for only a brief period. Thereafter attempts to make the mu nicipal government one of service instead of exploitation were as futile a the legendary efforts of King Canute; for the great immigration wav from Europe broke upon New York. The immigrants represented variou things to various groups. To the idealists, the Statue of Liberty was an af propriate welcome; to the industrialists, the newcomers meant a cheape
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Vor bor supply; but to the politicians, the arrivals at Ellis Island were merely d potential voters. Friendless, bewildered, anxious to become a part of the tuntry of their dreams, the immigrants went through the naturalization le ill, grateful to the petty politicians who showed them the way. Their anote was Tammany's, and upon it was built a patronage machine that con- ayı th f olled the city. The singleness of purpose with which the political ma- hines of New York and other cities went after the spoils of office, to the eglect of municipal problems and services, caused James Bryce to say in 888 that "the government of cities is the one conspicuous failure of the nited States."
Then suddenly the voice of righteousness reverberated throughout odom and Gomorrah, and was heard. In 1892 the Rev. Dr. Charles H. arkhurst rallied the middle class, represented by the residual church uritanism that still wielded some influence, in a campaign against corrupt ty officials whose power depended upon vast numbers of immigrants. Like is fellow ministers, he saw the essential degradation of man in commer- ialized vice; but gifted as he was with some degree of realistic outlook, e knew this evil thrived through collusion with a municipal officialdom hat profited from the graft connected with prostitution. Police connivance nd protection in return for bribes permitted the existing state of affairs. r. Parkhurst's raids on the brothels and his weekly sermons were sensa- iokonal. His language was fitted to his subject. "The polluted harpies, un- er the pretense of governing a city, are feeding day and night on its uivering vitals. They are a lying, perjured, rum-soaked and libidinous in ot."
Finally, in April 1894, as a result of the Parkhurst agitation, the State enate appointed an investigating committee with Clarence Lexow as its hairman. The committee's exposure of wholesale police extortion and of orruption in other departments led in 1895 to a thorough overhauling of he municipal government. The commission or board system of adminis- ration was abolished, and responsibility for each department was vested n a single executive head. Theodore Roosevelt, then a member of the Board of Police Commissioners, instituted drastic reforms in the police de- artment. A Department of Investigation and Accounts was organized, eaded by a commissioner whose duty was to run down graft, favoritism, nd bribery in the municipal government. In 1884, the first civil service aw for city employes was enacted.
The Parkhurst vice crusade and the ferretings of the Lexow Committee troused the people, but a deep community interest in the underlying cause
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of the maladjustment had been evident for some time before. Recogni ing that the basic difficulty was, and had been, a proper relation and ba ance between city and State governments, the State Senate appointed committee to investigate the subject of municipal government in the Sta and to make such recommendations as seemed pertinent. The report the Fassett Committee (as it was popularly known), submitted in 189 declared that the business of the city was subordinated to the exigencies ( State and national politics, and that under the existing circumstances stab city government was impossible. Municipal officials were unable to initia changes and reforms because of the inevitability of State interference. Ar State law affecting municipalities as such was applicable to all cities of th same class within the State; and as few measures could conceivably be we come to all, political jockeying often blocked necessary adjustments in th governmental machinery of cities.
As a result of the Fassett Committee's report, the State constitutic was amended in 1894 to allow some measure of local autonomy to th cities. Municipal authorities were given power of veto over a special er abling act of the legislature affecting them, a veto that could be overridde only if the legislature repassed the act in the same session within 30 day of its passage. The amendment was only a minor victory, but it foreshac owed the charter granted in 1897, which provided the basis for consolid; tion of the five boroughs and (with revisions adopted in 1901) formulate the general pattern of municipal government followed by Greater Ne York for forty years-until superseded by the charter that came into effer on January 1, 1938.
So dense was the population of the metropolitan area, and so rapidl had it spread beyond the confines of Manhattan Island, that years befor the five boroughs were consolidated in 1898 their political separation ha become an expensive anachronism. The city of Brooklyn, which in a hal century of rapid growth absorbed a number of adjacent towns and vil lages, had its own mayor, and in almost every other way duplicated th governmental organization of New York. Queens, Richmond, and what i now the Bronx, the scene of vast real estate developments, were hampere by antiquated or inadequate governmental forms. The separation was ex pensive because of the duplication of administrative functions; but mor important, it prevented the extension and coordination of municipa services to meet the needs of the growing communities.
In the years after consolidation the new metropolis adjusted itself to it governmental framework, free from the restrictions imposed by small gov
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nmental units. Municipal services were extended and improved. The boroughs were linked more closely by subways whose trains roared under boundary lines and rivers. New bridges were erected. A water system that an engineering marvel came into being. Port facilities were enlarged d modernized.
Yet the problem emphasized by the Fassett Committee still remained es tab itia A solved. State legislative action in almost all important municipal mat- rs continued, and such action was often not disinterested but tempered political expediency. Municipal initiative was not free to operate, and ty government was largely reduced to routine administrative functions. o the public-spirited New Yorker, the problem of securing good govern- we ent became irrevocably linked with freedom from State dominance. In the election of November 1923, the so-called "home rule amendment" to e State constitution was adopted by popular vote; and in the following tilar the necessary enabling act specifying the details of home rule powers id methods of exercising them was passed by the legislature and ap- roved by the governor. Under the amendment, every city in the State was anted "power to adopt and amend local laws not inconsistent with the institution and laws of the State," and in addition certain specific privi- ges were granted to New York City alone.
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