Tag Archives: Battle In Black and White

Battle in Black and White

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Recently, the NYT ran a story with the headline, “Stuyvesant To be Near Deal to Preserve Middle Class Housing.”  See link below

Amy Fox’s story on Stuyvesant Town focuses on another theme–its history.

How is the recent story related to the Fox’s piece?

They are related because both talk about how people are trying to live in the Stuyvesant Town and are encountering difficulties in moving there. Fox’s article is about a racially charged issue and how the citizens try to overcome the staying in their neighborhoods. In Bagli ‘s article however it talks about a type of solution ten years later by blocking 5000 apartments for 20 years for “traditional families” no matter their race but focused more so on their income families like construction workers teachers and firefighters as well as other rational jobs. With the history of Stuyvesant town which is mentioned in this article from Fox’s article after ten years since the article and 65 years after the battle black veterans went through to live here seems to finally be resolved with the mayor’s 10 year plan to provide affordable housing for residents.

Battle in Black and White

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Both Fox’s and Bagli’s pieces tell how Stuyvesant town housing is inaccessible to different groups of people.

Bagli’s piece explains that the pricing situation of the apartments is the main factor that is driving out minority groups because they cannot afford to stay in the area. This is interesting in that Stuyvesant town was specifically oriented towards housing minorities, but is instead pushing them out of it. Fox’s piece discusses the way that Stuyvesant town was meant for low income families and veterans, but did not include black families. Black families were even excluded even if they were war veterans.

Both articles touch upon the problems faced in the housing industry in which raising rent prices makes it hard for families to maintain stable homes and forces them to move out. What separates the two writers is that Bagli’s focus lies mainly on present issues, while Fox chooses to look back into the past to remind readers that this has been going on for some time.