Another part of the Forest Hills
Fuerst, J.S.
A HOUSING CONTROVERSY TWELVE YEARS LATER "1" g:=l P - ' l | . I I P " t I - " ~ 1.~/_1 I I t - - i: J.S. FUERST T WELVE YEARS AGO, New York City was almost torn apart by the fight of the...
...Elizabeth McGovern makes a little girl of her, but that i s probably a psychological not a chronological choice...
...GERALD WEALES Screen MISSED LIST CATCHING UP F EAST OR FAMINE...
...Gardner, who can no longer write poetry, has turned to criticism, but has been unable to do anything except type out the work of the poets that he intends to discuss...
...in making available low- and moderateincome housing in middle-class areas...
...Although Mags is teaching at Pratt, she cannot be over thirty, as her description of herself as a young beginner seems to indicate...
...Where the play goes wrong, I think, is in the hilarious scene in which the parents discover how tasty soda crackers are and vie for the box with total concentration while the daughter is trying to tell them that she is about to have her first one-woman show at the Castelli Gallery...
...Today's Parish...
...Pauline Letters and Theology...
...Community residents led by real estate man and B'nai B'rith leader Jerry Birbach claimed that Forest Hills was being "sold down the fiver" by a consortium of Simeon Golar, a black leader, Mayor Lindsay, and Richard Aurelio, the Italian Deputy Mayor...
...It is difficult to see Mags as the daughter of Fanny and Gardner...
...Mags's memory of swimming in the phosphorus-covered water with her father is an excludemother recollection which suggests that this has been as much a triangle as it has a family...
...When Mags says that as a portrait painter she is "so far out she is in," not only is the line a cliche epigram, but it makes little sense in the current art world...
...Interesting scenes though these are, they seem to grow out of the playwright's skill, not out of the characters...
...Had we known that a project could be like what this one is, most of us would have accepted it without any fanfare...
...In order for the compromise to take effect the City of New York had to contribute $10 million in a grant which was done in the interest of good government, racial harmony, and good public housing...
...for auditing, renewal, enrichment, formation...
...Into their partially dismantled world of games and querulous affection comes their daughter, all bounce and would-be amiability, a vision in her Soho glad rags who may be a major American painter in the making...
...Even though all types of reassurances were made to the community by Authority Chairman Golar, and in spite of the successful developments to which he could point, pandemonium broke out in the New York Jewish community, notably Forest Hills...
...Within the last few years, the New York City Housing Authority has issued guidelines to its applicants pointing out that certain behavior patterns on the part of applicants may render the applicant ineligible...
...Jerry Birbach, though he presently admits that the Forest Hills development is not only adequate but desirable in its present form, avers that the Housing Authority filled it with "the eyes of the world upon it," and sent its "very best qualified" applicants with far more restrictive screening techniques than it used for its other projects...
...The owner of the local fish market, an Italian-American, who has had the store in his family for many years, affirmed that the project was a real benefit to the community...
...Even in New York a great deal of the housing has been tenanted by blacks, though far less than in other Northern cities...
...The Gospel of Luke...
...Simeon Golar has said repeatedly that the Housing Authority is not housing primarily for the poor but is designed to cover a broad spectrum of low- and moderate-income families...
...For one thing, Howe seems to want Painting Churches to deal with change in the social and artistic sense as well as in human terms...
...In attempting to respond to the needs of low- and moderate-income residents, the city had designated a public housing project for future construction in the Forest Hills area...
...All we knew about public housing was what we had seen from elevated trains, or read in the news media...
...But what I'm offering here is ST...
...Introduction to Moral Theology...
...According to Dr...
...Phone: (802) 655-2000, Ext...
...The Sacraments...
...Most of the Forest Hills population were still violently opposed to the compromise and maintained that the only type of public housing that would be acceptable to them would be garden apartments for the elderly...
...For M.A...
...In fact, at the board meeting I attended, the four members of the board, all top officials of the New York City Housing Authority, clearly demonstrated their control over most of the significant questions of policy that arose, while the resident board members, including the chairman, Gary McCormack, voiced their unhappiness at the lack of control of essential policies by owner-residents...
...Actually the New York City Housing Authority, then chaired by Simeon Golar, had at the time one of the best records in the U.S...
...for credit without degree...
...Forest Hills Cooperative Public Housing was built and occupied in 1972 by 428 families, of whom 18 percent were black, and about 40 percent were elderly...
...Kroll, although there have been some population changes in the area, and it is more multi-ethnic than before, the reading and math performI 13 January 1984:15 ance in school is every bit as good as before, and the standards of the families are as upward-striving if not better...
...His professional decay has its counterpart in the collapse of the once beautiful marriage of the Churches which exists now only in the parody that the two of them play out under the commanding direction of Fanny...
...Her husband Gardner is a major American poet, friend of Frost and Pound, a winner of Pulitzer Prizes and presidential medals, and, although he seems saner than Fanny if somewhat preoccupied, he has become gaga, to use her word...
...In fact, this was to be the first all public-housing low- and moderate-income cooperative in the U.S...
...At the present time the average gross income is about $14,000 per year, and very few of the families receive welfare...
...Some scholarship aid available...
...Many of the erstwhile critics like Rabbi Joseph Grunblatt, a spiritual leader in the Queens Jewish community for many years, state that the primary reason for the success of the development was that it was "developed as a cooperative...
...Today 73.9 percent of children are reading at or above grade level, one of the best records in the city...
...Birbach and his group alleged that in order to protect Corona, an all-Italian, lowermiddle-income working-class area, from the incursion of public housing, Forest Hills, a primarily middle-to-upper-income Jewish area was being made the sacrificial lamb, and that a public housing development with extraordinary high cost-ofsite development was being foisted on them...
...As the end of the year approached, I realized that since last summer I had been falling further and further behind, that I would need twice as many columns as I had to cover everything I wanted to recommend...
...Moreover, an acceptable image has been hindered by class-action lawyers, notably the ACLU, who act on behalf of most of the applicants who are rejected as tenants or tenants who are being evicted for "antisocial" and disruptive behavior...
...It was in this context that New York City introduced in 1972 an 820-unit project, 22-story development into Forest Hills...
...If her concern is only the latter, however, these disquieting specific references still intrude, as they would not if the movement from laughter to pathos were completely absorbing...
...Biologically, the relation is possible, I suppose, but it strains belief...
...It begins in monologue as Fanny Church, a decayed Bostonian played with broad overstatement by Marian Seldes, divides her attention between the Lily Dach~ hat she has just bought for eight-five cents from a thrift shop and the family silver which she is packing for their departure from the home they can no longer afford...
...Similarly, the former Chairman of the Chicago Housing Authority, Andrew Mooney, pointed out that the Housing Authority cannot be the landlord of last resort and should not be thought of in that light...
...The Housing Authority recognizes that the presence of too many of these characteristics in developments is an important factor in excluding projects from middle-income or working-class neighborhoods...
...As indicated in a New York Times op-ed piece on September 24, 1983, today the community, including the former violent antagonists as well as the more sanguine neighbors, express the opinion that the development has in no way adversely ! affected the neighborhood...
...discounts...
...Stage HOWE'S CHURCHES PROMISES MORE THAN 1T DELIVERS T INA HOWE'S Painting Churches is one of those remarkably theatrical plays which manage to stir up doubts about bothgenre and contents even while it e n t e r - rains...
...Yet, the central tension among the three figures is that the parents -- the famous poet and the flamboyant mama -- have so intimidated the child that even now, welcomed by the New York art world, she wants their approval most of all, And she gets in an oddly lyric, slightly wacky final scene in which they dance their way into a Renoir painting after looking at the portrait she has done of them...
...The play is concerned with both the physical and mental indignities of growing old and the conventional parental-child conflict...
...Assiduously Cuomo studied the problem for several months, consulted extensively with all parties to the dispute, and then Commonweal: 14 suggested a compromise under which the development height and size would be reduced to 12 stories and 420 units, the number of elderly would be increased slightly, and the form of the organization changed to a cooperative...
...Also: Masters' Degrees in Counseling, Education, Administration, Teaching English As a Second Language...
...120 in Forest Hills, have remained stable at their high level...
...13 January 1984:17...
...James Kraus, a long-time resident of Forest Hills and an admitted original opponent of the project, explained it this way...
...Michael's College, Winooski, VT 05404...
...Adolph Kahn, official of Lane and Company, the biggest realtor in the area, indicated that property values in Forest Hills have increased commensurately with those in other areas, and that building of residences as well as condominium conversions continue, all of which signify a healthy level of real estate activity...
...Sometimes I go for months without feeling that there's a movie around really worth writing about...
...Howe has more serious work at hand, however -- work that never quite gets done...
...Courses: Introduction to the Old Testament...
...Most significantly, real estate values, school reading scores, and crime in the area are all completely stable...
...Further it was maintained that such a development would bring to Forest Hills a host of social problems: crime, deterioration, and overcrowding of schools, and a complete change of residents...
...Teachers: David Bryan, Doris Donnelly, Michael Fahey, Reginald Fuller, James Gaffney, Charles Gusmer, Paul Keyes, Dermot Lane, Anthony Lobo, Edward Mahoney, Reid Mayo, Una O'Neill, Pheme Perkins, Alexa Suelzer...
...Pre-degree Certificate...
...The 420-unit, 12-story building compromise was accomplished without legal obstacles...
...Despite its relatively outstanding record, there are a number of developments in the city which are distinctively black and have more welfare families than the average...
...This, it might be emphasized, was an altogether different picture from public housing in other cities where most such housing was placed in unacceptable areas and tenanted by the poorest of the poor...
...They had low turnover and considerable demand...
...Then all of a sudden, though far more rarely, there are so many that I can't get to them all...
...From 1980 to 1983 there have been decreases in every kind of crime except auto theft...
...usually the latter...
...Actions such as confirmed drug addiction, history of recent, serious, grossly unsanitary housekeeping inadequacies, or a series of anti-social activities that seem to indicate an inability to live peacefully and meaningfully in a housing development can be reasons for rejection or eviction...
...Herb Hamburg, the Director of Tenant Selection, categorically denies this and points to the many other projects mentioned earlier as well as a host of others where the general nature of the tenants is the same as at Forest Hills with equally happy results...
...Themes in the Theology of the Spiritual Life...
...Write: Department of Graduate Theology and Pastoral Ministry, St...
...David Hockney is the only name Mags mentions which _9 has a strong immediate reference...
...The Prophets...
...Questions were raised as to some of the young people who gathered in the community center, built by the development, but these complaints were primarily from residents of'the development who resented the extensive use of the center, for which Forest Hills Coop was charged a big fee, by young people, many of whom came from Lefrak City and beyond...
...Although there have been changes in Forest Hills in the population, not the slightest unrest was attributed to the addition of these low- and moderate-income, multi-ethnic families...
...FUERST T WELVE YEARS AGO, New York City was almost torn apart by the fight of the middle-class, predominantly Jewish residents of Forest Hills, Queens, and the Lindsay administration...
...2579...
...In New York City welfare families represent 30-35 percent of public housing, compared with 70 percent in many other cities...
...In New York, with the most progressive and tolerant acceptance of public housing, the white population by no means flocks to public housing...
...Postdegree Certificate (C.A.S...
...Neither the residents nor the board itself would agree with Rabbi Grunblatt, since they both feel that the success of the Forest Hills Coop, whatever its virtues may be, do not lie in its "cooperative nature...
...in Theology, Scripture, Religious Education, Pastoral Ministry and Spirituality...
...that in fact crime is no higher than before the development was built...
...After a considerable brouhaha in which Jewish organizations from all over the city swarmed over Mayor Lindsay, and planning organizations besieged both the Housing Authority and the Mayor, Mayor Lindsay appointed as negotiator and mediator Mario Cuomo (a New York lawyer who had been instrumental in helping to solve another local neighborhood dispute, this one revolving around a high school in Corona...
...What this suggested to us was that if we accepted a public housing project we were in for trouble...
...1984 to be announced...
...Painting Churches keeps promising more than it delivers...
...Group discounts...
...MICHAEL'S COLLEGE, June 25-Aug...
...In this column and my next one, which will be my last for a while, I ha~e therefore tried toplay a little catch-up ball...
...A walking tour through the nearby shopping strip on 108th Street indicated a thriving commercial center with few if any vacant stores...
...Originally there was enormous anger at 22 stories and the 800 units...
...While this income is slightly higher than is characteristic of many other public housing developments, and there is a slightly lower number of children per family, it is by no means unique...
...Auditor and C.A.S...
...If housing authorities will control the type of tenancy, there is no reason that they cannot be placed in any neighborhood...
...Prob, leeas of hot water delivery and painting schedules seem to be more than equitably worked out under the joint guidance of the resident board members, the Housing Authority board members, and the housing manager...
...However, the only way the development could be scaled down from 22 stories to 12 was by a great increase in per-unit cost of development, putting it far beyond HUD cost limits...
...I labor these points for two reasons...
...Such projects as Pelham Bay and Parkside in the Bronx, Chelsea Elliott and Alfred E. Smith Houses in downtown Manhattan, and Pomonock in Queens were all highly integrated developments with black, white and Spanish-American, elderly and young, nuclear and broken families, self-supporting and welfare families...
...On the other hand, it was clear by the give and take in the meeting that the management which was in the hands of the housing manager, a long-term housing authority employee, was more than satisfactory to the residents...
...This is not exactly my ten-best list, though there are films on it that would make such a list, if I were drawing one up this year...
...Fees: $105 per credit in 1983...
...Growth in the Spiritual Life and in Prayer...
...There are still many laughs -- and Seldes goes for them in earnest -- but both Fanny and Gardner get angry or pathetic scenes which indicate that growing old is not a joke and the rebellious, loving daughter has her confrontations...
...A HOUSING CONTROVERSY TWELVE YEARS LATER "1" g:=l P - ' l | . I I P " t I - " ~ 1.~/_1 I I t - - - i: J.S...
...The only raised eyebrows were at the rather large incursion in the neighborhood of recent Russian-Jewish immigrants who live both in and around the development...
...Faith in God Today...
...Mrs...
...Excellent living accommodations (townhouses...
...The ACLU as well as Welfare Rights and Legal Aid societies maintain in typical Don J. s. FUERST is professor of social work and urban studies at Loyola University in Chicago...
...Introduction to Pastoral Counseling...
...If Gardner published his first book of poetry before Robert Frost's North to Boston came out, then the Churches -- or he, at least -- should be well into their eighties which would square with the lines about incontinence and gaga-ness...
...At Smith Houses, at Pomonock, at Pelham Bay and at Chelsea Elliott, as well as many others, the income levels, particularly the state and city-financed developments, are well above the averages in the federal ones...
...Marcia Kroll, twenty-year principal of P.S...
...I N THE LIGHT of the current misconceptions of the potential for public housing, one of the most interesting aspects of the Forest Hills development is its size and height...
...For much of the first act, Painting Churches (the title comes from the fact that Mags wishes to do a portrait of her parents while Tina Howe is doing one of all three Churches) has the look of a dotty-family comedy...
...However, the national media, and the New York City public have not yet come to recognize this...
...Foundations of Religious Education...
...This has stimulated the belief by the population at large -- both black and white working class -- that project living is both "secondclass" and" dangerous...
...3, 1984 -- Six-week and three-week courses in the comfort of scenic Vermont...
...Still, it is worth seeing because Tina Howe is clearly a talented playwright with an attractively oblique way of seeing, her play is acted with vigor, and the early "scenes are triumphantly funny...
...A drapery shop owner, a German delicatessen store owner, and a pharmacist all joined in simila~ praise for the development and its residents...
...A small group of Forest Hills neighbors supported this compromise, including some Jewish leaders, and a somewhat larger group of city leaders...
...One other difficulty with the play is that it seems to have lost a generation...
...Theology of the Church...
...If Mags's memory is correct -- the six months she was Commonweal: 16 banished from table and the melted-crayon masterpiece she constructed during her exile in the bedroom -- Fanny has always been something of a martinet and the Gardner-Fanny team one that worked with greater charm when there are no intruders, not even children...
...Moreover, public school reading scores, according to Dr...
...At the end of the first act, as Mags's babbled demand for recognition brings the broad comedy to a close, the show becomes darker...
...More significantly, 60 percent were familieS, accounting for 75 percent of the development population with about 400 children, about one child per unit...
...Similarly the residents I spoke to who lived immediately adjacent to the development did nothing but praise it...
...Birbach and Hamburg, however, do agree on one point and that is that the class action lawyers and the civil liberty lawyers and welfare rights people in New York City (and elsewhere) seem to combine their forces on the Housing Authority to try to make them take and keep tenants with which no development, public or private, can survive...
...the others seem to have been chosen because they are recognizable...
...The scene is as delicious as the soda crackers, and I and everyone around me laughed noisily...
...Detective Jerry DiMuro, a long-time police officer in the area, told me that the crime increase predicted by the "doom and gloom" boys when the development was first mentioned, has in no way materialized...
...yet I suspect that the scene should be as horrifying as it is funny and the seeds for the later harsher tone planted here...
...Even this, however, was recognized as the ordinary discomfort of an urban neighborhood rather than the problems associated traditionally with public housing...
...If there were any uneasiness at the urban changes, they attributed it to Lefrak City, a private development on the other side of the highway from Forest Hills...
...Anotherpart of _9 the Forest Hills I Quixote form that they are defending the civil and constitutional fights of defenseless citizens, and that the Housing Authority is in fact the housing of last resort for the true poorest of the poor, a position that no enlightened housing administrator has taken for years...
...At the Lambs...
...Howe (and Seldes) wants to suggest that Fanny's icy inanity is a survival pose, her way of sustaining Gardner, jollying him toward the grave that she longs to share...
...Granddaughter would be more appropriate...
...What's more, both the old Boston/Pound-Frost parental context and the art world that Mags inhabits begin to seem gratuitous...
...Resident board members were unhappy at the increases in carrying charges, at the burden of the community center which they believed served their needs only minimally, and the poor hot water delivery...
...Was it worth it...
...Altogether it seemed like an outstanding combination, although far more like a good tenant advisory board than a "Rochdale" or "conventional" cooperative...
...Mayor Lindsay held firm, Chairman Golar agreed to the compromise, and the proposal went through the Board of Estimate, launching a number of middle-to-upper-income families on their way to more affluent parts of Long Island even before any construction began, and Mario Cuomo on his way to the New York governorship...
...For many years the Housing Authority has sought to dispel this notion, but the occasional violence or criminal activity that surface in the developments and eager media coverage have not permitted this...
Vol. 111 • January 1984 • No. 1
