1. What is your book about? 

Freedomland tells the story of Co-op City from its tumultuous planning process in the 1960s through the largest rent strike in American History in the 1970s and the community’s reinvention after white flight in the 1980s. The book ends in the early 1990s, just as Co-op City celebrated its 25th anniversary and achieved some hard-won financial stability (in carrying charge rates, at least). 

As residents well know, Co-op has been reviled for everything from its brutalist style to its role in the destabilization of the Grand Concourse neighborhoods, to the intransigence and irascibility of its residents, and the idea that its construction defects made it an unaffordable boondoggle. As I argue, each of these charges is somewhat overblown (okay, the construction defects were pretty bad). But the book isn’t just about Co-op City alone, it’s also a story about New York as a whole from the 60s to the present; of race, ethnicity, class and urban crisis, and neoliberalism–but also of community, resistance, and utopia.  

1. How did you come to write about Co-op City?

Well, the short version is that I grew up here and my mom and sister still live here. But there’s a longer version to that tale. Growing up, I’ll be honest, I wasn’t a huge fan of Co-op–I mostly just wished it was more exciting. I never thought in a million years that I would ever write about it. After College, I became a historian, specializing in German history, which meant I lived in Berlin for a number of years while I was working on my dissertation and first book. While I lived there, German friends would often ask where I grew up in New York. And I found myself often comparing Co-op City with this huge East German housing development, Marzahn, on the outskirts of Berlin. After making the comparison a thousand times, I started wondering why a development in the Northeast Bronx looked like one in Northeast Berlin. This led me to research global post-WWII modernist urban planning, and also to want to know more about Co-op City specifically. What I found was that Co-op City was mostly absent from histories of New York, but there was a fascinating story to tell. And so…I decided to tell it!  

1. What do you think is unique about Co-op City?

At the risk of cliche, I would say it’s Co-op City’s size. Co-op City was the largest housing development built by the United Housing Foundation, a cooperative housing developer that was backed by labor organizations and was responsible for projects across New York. It had the largest mortgage ever granted through the Mitchell Lama program. It was also home to the largest rent strike in American history in 1975-76. And while many have reviled Co-op City’s size–saying it was impossible to create a community in such a large development, or that the size meant that Co-op City had problems that were too large to fix–in reality, I found that Co-op City’s size was just as often a benefit. It’s a complicated story (and one I tell in the book), but one of the major reasons that the rent strike succeeded in achieving resident control was that Co-op City was literally too big to fail. Furthermore, the fact that Co-op City had representatives in Albany who were indebted to their Co-op City voters meant that sometimes Co-op City was able to get attention and assistance that other affordable housing communities often could not. 

Another thing that is unique about Co-op City is that it is an exclusively middle class community in a city that has become increasingly unaffordable. One thing this means is that Co-op is a great deal–as many residents (inc. my own parents) said to me, “it’s the best deal in New York!” But another thing that I argue is that because residents were all from roughly the same class background, the racial transition of the 1970s and 1980s, when Co-op City became a majority non-white community was more peaceful than this transition was in a lot of other parts of the city. Co-op City was never the paradise that a lot of people hoped it would be, but I think the ability to create and sustain a middle class community in New York is a pretty impressive accomplishment. 

1. What do you hope residents get out of the book? 

I am hoping that Freedomland will be read by a lot of different people. I hope it will be read by activists, by historians, by urban planners, etc. But maybe mostly, I am hoping it will be read by residents and former residents who realize how important they and their progenitors have been in making Co-op City, and indeed New York as a whole, the place that it has become. I am writing in part for people who, like me, may have under-estimated the place and its residents to realize just what an important place it really has been.

1. What was your favorite part of researching the book?

I think my favorite part of working on the book was getting to see familiar places in an unfamiliar light. For example, one random fact: I found out that construction defects meant that there was a room in Truman that could only be used as a greenhouse, and I totally got a kick out of that. I also read through countless back issues of the Co-op City Times and City News and it was always interesting to see names and faces that were familiar. In some cases, my friends’ parents had been important figures in local politics and I had no idea! But maybe the best part was talking to current and former residents and hearing their stories. I loved learning random things from people, like how they played games in the basement tunnels of their buildings or how many different social clubs there were in Co-op City’s early years. I also found out that a bunch of early rappers had performed in Co-op, which made me feel like I’d really missed out by being born a little too late. 

1. How do I get a copy of the book?

Copies have been ordered for the Baychester Public Library. And it is available from amazon and Barnes and Noble, etc. But you can also go to the Cornell University Press website and order it there–if you do that and use the code 09BCARD when you do so, you can get 30% off of the list price. 

leo.

Annemarie Sammartino grew up in the Alder Place townhouses and is now Professor and Chair of the History Department at Oberlin College.