In 1959, a "slum clearance plan" by Robert Moses displaced 2,400 families and dozens of businesses from Manhattan's Lower East Side. A working mother named Frances Goldin and her neighbors formed the Cooper Square Committee, determined to save their neighborhood. For five decades, they battled politicians, developers, and gentrification, ultimately establishing the state's first community land trust, a permanently affordable neighborhood.
Rabble Rousers
The 1959 "slum clearance plan" in New York City, spearheaded by Robert Moses, would forcibly relocate 2,400 working class and immigrant families, as well as dozens of businesses, from the Cooper Square area of Manhattan's Lower East Side.
