Robert Moses

In order to ‘improve” the Bronx which had the largest amount of residents living in public housing in the nation, urban planners were hired to redevelop the area (CUNY Baruch). Robert Moses was an urban planner responsible for the Cross Bronx Expressway causing the deterioration and destruction affecting the Bronx forever (Congress for the New Urbanism). On the topic, Robert Moses stated, “You must concede that this Bronx slum is unrepairable [sic]. It is beyond rebuilding, tinkering and restoring. The must be leveled to the ground” (Robert Moses, in the New York Times, January 18, 1973).The Cross Bronx Expressway is an expressway that connects The Bronx to Manhattan and New Jersey (CUNY Baruch). In 1942, Robert Moses proposed the idea for

Working as a photojournalist for New York Tribune, he documented the filth, exploitation, disease and overcrowding of more than one million blue collar immigrant workers (New York University Journalism Portfolio). His book How the Other Half Lives got him recognized by the President of the United States at the time, Theodore Roosevelt (National Park Service). His book made a huge impact on how the Lower East Side was seen and helped change the design of New York City apartments and improving living and working conditions for people in poverty. His book encouraged a new type of plan for tenement apartments that were too small, dumbbell tenements (Library of Congress). Jacob Riis described living in the small tenements and the additional struggles while living with a very large family in Lower East Side in Manhattan, “I have found in three rooms father, mother, twelve children, and six boarders. They sleep on the half-made clothing for beds. I found that several people slept in a subcellar four feet by six, on a pile of clothing that was being made” (Library of

The neighborhood is primarily immigrants including Dominican and Puerto Rican. On the other hand, this community is beginning to go through gentrification because of more Caucasian coming into this neighborhood. Gentrification is the opposite of white flight because it brings in higher income people and businesses into a community so that lower class who can not afford to live there anymore must move to a more affordable location. In wealthier neighborhoods today, crime is actually increasing compared to the rest of New York City (Simeone). “Meanwhile, precincts in Manhattan South’s historically more crime-addled neighborhoods, including Chinatown, the Lower East Side, East Village and Midtown North, all saw overall crime decline compared with a year ago, figures show”