The Battle for Gotham

by Roberta Brandes Gratz

  Less and less of this is possible in New York City.

  7

  THE UPPER WEST SIDE

  What Moses Couldn’t Kill

  A living city is always becoming.

  SANDY IKEDA,

  economist

  Then as now, it is spoken of as THE West Side—sometimes Upper, more often just the—but in reality it is dozens of communities lumped together under one geographical umbrella, running roughly from 59th Street to 110th. More than a community, the West Side was and still is a state of mind.

  The earliest hints of the city’s turnaround were first recognized in the 1970s on the Upper West Side, even though signs could also be seen in other parts of the city, notably Brooklyn. But the Upper West Side was in the spotlight with all the massive urban renewal clearance projects going on and the presence of Lincoln Center. And the press was, at the time, very Manhattan-centric. Lincoln Center kept the media’s attention.

  Flanked by two great Olmsted parks, divided by three distinct shopping streets, and served by two subway lines and several crosstown buses, the West Side had solid urban assets that helped it sustain considerable urban renewal erosion without killing it entirely. What the West Side also had that served as a crucial ingredient of rebirth was a wealth of solid, if badly abused, brownstones—blocks after blocks of them. Renovators started slowly buying them in the 1960s. In 1969, Donald and I bought and fully renovated a four-story brownstone, creating a duplex for ourselves and two floors of rental apartments above.1

  7.1 Our brownstone on Eighty-seventh Street. We occupied the basement and parlor floor and rented the top two floors.

  Most West Side brownstones had been built in the late 1890s for middle-class families but had not fared well over time. They had been broken up into tiny apartments and neglected by absentee landlords. But they were easily converted back to single-family, double-duplex dwellings or other combinations. House tours became a popular vehicle for early “brownstoners” to publicize the alternative lifestyle they were pioneering. Donald and I happened to go on one, were impressed, and thought a brownstone was the answer to our desire to stay in the city. We were already comfortably settled in a two-bedroom apartment on West Eighty-first Street across from the Planetarium and a half block from the Central Park playground. But the brownstones we saw were extremely attractive and still cheap. A house, backyard, barbecue, sandbox, and still be in the city? What an appealing concept, a compromise for the suburban resister.

  I never thought of Donald and myself as urban pioneers, but when we bought the brownstone on the Upper West Side, many of our friends and relatives thought of us as such. How could we not want a house in the suburbs? When the kids started to come, most young couples at that time in the late 1960s headed out. This was the pattern expected of our generation. Neither Donald nor I would hear of it. Donald had been raised in a near-in suburb but wanted to stay in the city, as I did. Other city couples were resisting the outward trend, finding ways to stay in the city.

  A NEW URBAN RENEWAL PARADIGM

  Three years later, we were gone, back to apartment house living. It was too much “pioneerism.” The neighborhood was in a state of flux. Our area of the Upper West Side was under intense pressure from the thousands of legitimately angry West Side residents displaced for Lincoln Center and Lincoln Towers to the south. We were on the southernmost block of the West Side Urban Renewal area that uniquely called for a combination of brownstone conservation on the midblocks and new apartment-house construction on the avenues. This plan was promoted by the City Planning Commission, under chairman James Felt, in contrast to the Moses total-clearance pattern. Here, primarily the avenues were cleared and replaced with both public housing and high-rise, economically mixed apartment houses; the midblock brownstones were, for the most part, spared. These were the same quality brownstones Moses declared irredeemable elsewhere. This was a new urban renewal model, new for New York City and, in fact, for the country.

  The AIA Guide notes:

  The concepts that emerged were radically different from those of earlier renewal efforts. Exploitation of the highest possible rental scales was abandoned. Clearance and rebuilding from scratch, once the only redevelopment tools, were combined with rehabilitation and renovation, particularly of the basically sound side-street brownstone row houses. Steps were taken to ensure an economic and social mix within the district by providing not only separate low-rent projects but also low-rent families within middle-income developments. Finally, the plan provided for phased development from West 97th Street south to encourage the relocation of on-site tenants.2

  The idea of a neighborhood of mixed-income housing really appealed to us. But understandable unrest on the part of displaced low-income families to the south had resulted in frequent protests, community conflict, and personal unease. Hundreds of displacees were now demanding replacement housing.

  Urban renewal never produced new quantity as much as it destroyed old. The bulk of what was built, in this case Lincoln Towers just north of Lincoln Center and most of the West Side Urban Renewal area, was intentionally for the middle class, beyond the financial reach of the displaced poor. Keeping the middle class in the city was the avowed purpose. Thus, the legitimate pressure for more low-income housing made life difficult and unpleasant for many pioneering young families. The tensions, heated community meetings, and angry protests were unsettling, to say the least. Neighborhood stabilization was difficult to achieve. An overall tension in the community impeded the potential for community spirit and comfortable integration. Crime was already a problem. All this discouraged us.

  It was a particularly painful situation for me, already juggling full-time work at the newspaper with motherhood at a time when this combination was not common and very difficult. The idea, so accepted today, of taking a few years out of a career to stay home with young children was for me not an option. I would never have gotten my job back. Some of my editors were already leery of having a working mother as a reporter. I was the first at the New York Post since World War II. Other women reporters were married, but the only other one with children was the fashion editor and she was a grandmother. I did, however, find ways to restrain my career in order to give me more time with my kids. Feature assignments allowed me to leave home late in the morning or come home early in the afternoon. Occasionally, I persuaded an editor to let me write the story at home. I also had wonderful child care, but our babysitter even felt unsafe taking the children to the playground during the day.

  My mother lived around the corner, frequently visited my kids, but she, too, was uncomfortable walking with them in the neighborhood. The accumulated tensions were too much. I was confident that in another decade, the neighborhood would be fabulous, but in the meantime, we had two daughters to raise and a life to lead. We couldn’t wait. I was correct about the neighborhood eventually being fabulous. I was off by only a couple of years. It took a little longer than a decade, but, for sure, today the area’s an established winner.

  THE ERA OF FEAR

  It is easy to forget the well-founded fears we lived with in the New York of the 1970s. Crime seemed rampant. Fear was the emotion of the day. It motivated many residents to move away. The 1970s saw the explosion of drugs, especially crack.

  Gold necklaces were torn off pedestrians. Handbags were snatched, giving rise to the popularity of the shoulder bag. Young kids had the sneakers they were carrying taken away from them as they traveled to and from school. In parks, kids were known to have their bikes taken out from under them by menacing kids. Flower boxes were emptied or taken in total. Cars were constantly broken into or stolen. And bikes were an immediate invitation to disappearance even if locked with a heavy chain. These were facts of life all New Yorkers lived with, not just pioneering brownstoners. But despite the hurdles, slowly but surely, more families were buying brownstones and were taking the risk.

  Not us. We tried but wanted out. We jumped at an opportunity in a wonderful Central Park West apartment h
ouse, one of the Art Deco twin towers that makes the Central Park West skyline famous. Back to traditional door-man apartment-house living. We sold the brownstone at a loss and have not moved since. That was 1972.

  We had experienced petty crime firsthand. Most was nonthreatening. Prowlers on the roof. Unsuccessful break-in attempts. Stolen bikes and plants. But the worst occurrence I recorded in the following story. Ironically, this style of the firsthand story became a New York City journalistic art form in the 1970s—writers detailing their personal encounter with crime. In the New York of today, this experience isn’t remotely anticipated.

  It might seem strange, but the following incident was not what caused our departure. It was more of an accumulation of things—disappointment in the neighborhood, the hostilities and tensions in the community, the difficulties raising young children under tense conditions, and, of course, daily fear. But many families remained undaunted, and some neighbors and friends from those days are still in place and happily so. And although the following occurrence did not drive us out, it was indeed traumatic.

  “Mugged: A Victim’s Story”

  New York Post Daily Magazine, February 6, 1971

  “You’ve now had the prototypical New York City experience. You’ve totally committed yourselves to remaining here and raising your children here. You’ve renovated a brownstone and now you’ve been mugged.”——A Friend.

  It is the ultimate fear we all live with in this city, the fear of being mugged. It is the nightmare that all New Yorkers shared but until it happens to you, it remains just an abstraction, something you’ve heard about or read about, something that happened to someone else.

  Then it happens to you and you discover that the reality is more brutal, more psychologically devastating than you imagined possible. You know it could have been worse physically, you know you could have been killed. But you can’t imagine how anything could jar your psyche more.

  It happened to me. I know.

  It was a weekday evening. My husband and I had just come out of an apartment house on 86th St. between Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues. The hour was 11:30. We had only a three-minute walk to our house around the corner on 87th. It was snowing slightly. The ground was slippery. We walked carefully, focusing on the ground.

  Eighty-sixth is a major crosstown street, rarely deserted, always plenty of cars and buses passing by. Upper West Side residents hardly concern themselves with the major thoroughfares; it is the side streets, like the one we live on, that we worry about. They are frequently deserted. Anyone with normal city fears would anticipate a mugger lurking in the shadows.

  But we were on 86th and there were several pedestrians not far away. We saw two youths walking toward us, one about 5-5, the other about 5-9, both black. The tall one wore sunglasses. I thought of nothing at the sight of them except that I had to turn slightly to pass them and that I should be careful not to slip.

  Suddenly they were right in front of us. I don’t even remember falling, just landing. I was apparently pushed with such force that there wasn’t even time to try to break the fall by instinctively turning to the side.

  I landed squarely on my back, with the back of my head and spine hitting hardest. I didn’t lose consciousness and as I started to get up I saw my husband fighting with our assailants. I screamed like I never thought I knew how, so loud it was heard on the 19th floor of a nearby apartment house.

  They hadn’t laid a hand on my husband when they pushed me down. In fact, he hardly realized what had happened until he saw the short one pick up the bag I dropped and start running. Instinctively he went for him, yelling the profanities of an outraged husband. They fought. My husband doesn’t recall the mugger putting up much of a fight.

  Then the second youth jumped on my husband and it was at that point I screamed. I spotted a police car passing in front of us on 86th. The policemen heard the scream, came running. The muggers fled in opposite directions, the pocketbook left behind.

  The police gave up the chase after only a block or so and I wonder if they really tried hard enough to catch the pair. The muggers had a very slight lead. They could have been caught. But I also wonder if I can blame them for not trying harder.

  So many times police have risked their necks to catch such people, only to discover that the victims, fearful of reprisal, refuse to press charges. How did they know I would have gone to court? Is the policeman wrong for feeling, “I don’t want to get killed either.” Or, to complain that he arrests criminals only to see them back on the street in a short time doing their thing?

  . . . I have written about victims of all kinds of crime, heard their agonies, listened to their demands for action. I have wrestled with the issues of crime and justice. Still I have no answers, just questions.

  The whole incident was over in less than five minutes. The police offered to drive us to the hospital. I declined, thinking my injuries were not serious. All I wanted was to go home and get into bed. They drove us around the corner. I called a doctor friend and inquired what I should do for myself. He advised a hospital for X-rays, just to be sure.

  The aches and pains were beginning to surface but their severity still hadn’t occurred to me. In the next few hours I was to discover a fractured skull, badly bruised spine, jaw knocked out of line, bleeding tongue and elbow, stiff neck and a score of minor injuries. My husband suffered a few bruises from the fight.

  Twice before I have had to go to hospital emergency rooms but never at night. It was already 12:30. We went to Mt. Sinai. It seemed to me to be a slow night. Not many people waiting, no accident or other mugging victims. I watched the others. A child with a painful earache, sobbing in his mother’s arms, waited the same hour-and-a half that I did. Another child and a woman had fevers. A mother having a bad asthma attack was accompanied by her young children. All were black or Puerto Rican. I was struck by the thought that the poor rely on the emergency rooms of our hospitals the way the middle class relies on family doctors.

  My turn finally came, X-rays were taken, a fracture noted, a neurologist called, a decision made to admit me for observation and tests. There was one bed available in the whole hospital. By 4 a.m. I was in it and my husband finally went home.

  The head nurse came in, a warm, sympathetic girl who just wanted to assure me they would do their best to make me comfortable. Suddenly, everything finally began to sink in and I broke down, sobbing uncontrollably. She let me talk it out. I felt better but the full reality of what had happened less than five hours earlier was just beginning to register. I had become a statistic, a victim of crime.

  I spent the next five days in the hospital and fortunately no blood clotting or other possible effects of a fracture occurred. All the tests indicated there would be no after-effects.

  Not for one minute in those five days and for several after I got home did my mind wander from what had happened. I kept seeing that face, that blank, cold expression of the man who pushed me. It is now just an impersonal face, just an expression. I doubt I could identify either assailant. It’s like every B crime movie you’ve ever seen where there’s a police line-up and a witness tried desperately to identify the criminal.

  Everything about the incident ran counter to what we anticipate will happen. I had never worried about walking at night with my husband. It is only women alone who think they must be extra careful. You think if it happens, someone will come up and grab your bag or demand you turn it over. You promise yourself you won’t resist, to save your neck. I never had the chance.

  As I tried desperately to drive the details from my mind, I realized we never really expect this kind of thing to happen to us. The fear of it has become woven into the fabric of this city’s life. We continue to think it will always be the other guy. We refuse to accept the fact that this city can be dangerous. It can’t happen here. But it can and it does.

  The reactions, concern and questions of friends were interesting. Immediately they asked, “Are you sorry you’re still living in the city?” They
know what my husband and I went through to renovate our brownstone. They know the agonizing process of deciding to totally commit yourself, your family, your resources to a community still fraught with risk and aggravated urban problems.

  They know how desperately we wanted to be able to live in this city. Yet I know my children, now only 1 and 3 years of age, will never have the freedom to enjoy this city as I did as a child. And I am sad for them.

  I have friends who have made the move out. They called, too. Interestingly enough, only one said, “So when are you moving out?” Others were more honest. One told me of a child in her neighborhood who was mysteriously kidnapped while playing on the lawn but fortunately released a few blocks away. “There are problems everywhere,” she said . . .