Gas House Gang

In the process of scanning the news headlines for the latest on Stuyvesant Town, I stumbled across a terrific promotional video for the complex dating from 1947. I think this is the first video footage, that I have seen, of the neighborhood that was demolished to make way for the sprawling residential complex. The film is in color, and it explores the gritty, urban neighborhood that was called the Gas House District, for reasons that become obvious when you watch the footage. The narrator describes it as "blighted", a loaded word that became quite useful in the hands of real estate developers, and their enablers in City Hall. By calling something "blighted", you are in effect saying that it would be better for all concerned, if the neighborhood in question were to be torn down, and replaced with something nicer.

The problem, of course, is that the buildings and shops that are slated for demolition are not empty. They are instead teeming with humanity. Thousands of people were displaced to clear 80 acres of land so that a private corporation, Metropolitan Life, could build a planned community. And while I don't have statistics at hand, I do not believe more then a small handful of those refugees found a home in Stuyvesant Town. This was by no means an isolated instance; urban renewal projects duplicated the process all over the city.

I lived in Stuyvesant Town for 15 years and only moved in August of this past year. It was a wonderful place to live, in many respects, if you ignore the fact that it brutally altered the urban fabric of the area. Cross streets and avenues do not bisect the development, and there is no commercial activity within Stuyvesant Town. In many respects, it almost looks like a walled city, and I have no doubt that many of the people on the outside looking in view it in exactly that way.

The southern border of the complex is 14th street, stretching from First Avenue to the East River. On the downtown side of 14th, you have the Lower East Side of Manhattan, a neighborhood that still looks very much like the one leveled to make room for Stuyvesant Town. And, apart from some gentrification, the Lower East Side is comprised of people much like the ones who lived in the Gas House District. The ethnic and racial composition might be different, but the stark reality of poverty remains unchanged.

I'll embed the video below this post...