The Projects

June 13, 2008 11:31 PM

What are the New York City "projects"? I often hear the phrase "The Projects" in TV and movies. I understand they are an area of somewhat low-cost housing, and that it tends to be an "unsavory" neighborhood, but not terribly so. My question is, what exactly does it mean for something to be a project. Why are they there, how did they get there, and what does it mean today? Google and Wikipedia have been of little help.

Thanks MeFits!

posted by LoopyG to grab bag (36 comments total)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_housing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_housing_in_the_United_States_and_Canada#New_York
posted by boombot at 11:45 PM on June 13, 2008

"The projects" as in "public housing projects". This list of projects in New York might be of interest..
posted by aeighty at 11:47 PM on June 13, 2008

Great minds, aeighty.
posted by boombot at 11:50 PM on June 13, 2008

LoopyG posted "it tends to be an 'unsavory' neighborhood, but not terribly so."

Generally, terribly so, not not terribly so.
posted by orthogonality at 12:00 AM on June 14, 2008

I found those Wikipedia links earlier, but they do not really explain what the projects are, other than the fact that they are public housing, which I already knew. I was hoping to get a more specific description.
posted by LoopyG at 12:23 AM on June 14, 2008

You will probably get the information you're after by looking at the histories of a few specific projects, such as The Robert Taylor Homes and Cabrini Green.
posted by o0o0o at 12:36 AM on June 14, 2008

Cabrini-Green was the quintessential example of what "the projects" are like, and while it's very much a fiction film (not to mention a horror film), Candyman is a solid movie set in the that particular public housing project, and a good portion of it was actually shot there. Many of the small details are true to life as well (e.g. the business about the shoddy construction behind the bathroom mirrors). I've lived right around the corner from at least three different public housing projects, and no, they are not cheerful places, although to be sure, it's not like anyone ever gave me any grief who came from them.

There's a book whose title I cannot recall (I beg of the hivemind to please correct my ignorance), which is semi-related, which is about the safety of design as far as architecture is concerned in public spaces. Much of it concerned how poorly laid-out many public housing projects were. Imagine being forced, for economic reasons, to live in a housing complex with other desperately poor people, where the lobby is hidden from public view by a bottleneck. How much would that suck to get mugged in your own lobby because you can't see who's around the corner ten feet ahead of you. Shit sucks. Now imagine that annoyance times a hundred, every single day.

Very stressful living.
posted by Sticherbeast at 12:37 AM on June 14, 2008

What more specificity are you looking for? 'The projects' is used pretty generally (not just in New York) to describe any neighbourhood with significant quantities of government subsidized housing. It tends to be used with a reference to the overall rates of crime, poverty, drug-use, etc, but there's not a distinguishing characteristic of a housing project other than that it's, you know, a housing project.
posted by jacquilynne at 12:39 AM on June 14, 2008

If you're looking for the specific etymology of the term 'The Projects', it comes from the phrase (mentioned above) Public Housing Projects. These sites were developed by public works agencies to provide high-density, very-low-cost housing. "The Project" was the building and operation of the facilities. And in almost every case, the project failed.
posted by hwyengr at 1:31 AM on June 14, 2008

Related to this, here is a bit of reading on the backstory of housing "projects" and some of the problems associated with their design - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Public Housing in the US.
posted by fire&wings at 1:52 AM on June 14, 2008

Most things people would refer to has "projects" are either high-rise apartment buildings or large complexes. At the time, the idea was to create as much government subsidized housing as possible in a concentrated area (and presumably to segregate "those people").

Now, municipalities are increasingly turning to "mixed income housing" with the idea that low cost housing can be provided without it being a demeaning dead-end.
posted by hydropsyche at 4:44 AM on June 14, 2008

In New York City proper, the projects are administered by the New York City Housing Authority*, or NYCHA. You may be interested in this pictorial history of the development of the projects from 1930 - 1967. Here's a list of articles from the NYT on the Housing Authority.

*Don't miss the list of notable NYCHA residents at the end of the Wiki article. They omitted 50 Cent (Ingersoll Houses, I think).
posted by lassie at 5:13 AM on June 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

New York is (perhaps?) unusual in that there are two huge projects -- the Chelsea projects, and the Amsterdam projects near Lincoln Center -- which are in ultra-prime neighborhoods. There are non-project buildings 100 feet away in every direction where condos sell for $5 million and apartments rent for $10,000 a month.

Those projects create some interesting features and challenges from a standpoint of public service, retail landscape, and law enforcement.
posted by MattD at 5:14 AM on June 14, 2008

I've written a lot of about working in the projects as a social worker in Philly. These should give you a good idea of what life is like in an archetype high rise housing project. 1, 2
posted by The Straightener at 5:26 AM on June 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

If you want to read a fantastic book about public housing, specifically the Robert Taylor Homes that o0o0o mentioned, pick up Sudhir Venkatesh's Gang Leader for a Day. It follows a street gang living in the housing project and gives a ton of insight into what life was like there.
posted by saraswati at 7:29 AM on June 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

There's a book whose title I cannot recall (I beg of the hivemind to please correct my ignorance), which is semi-related, which is about the safety of design as far as architecture is concerned in public spaces.

Were you thinking of the book Defensible Space?
posted by Forktine at 8:05 AM on June 14, 2008

Also, here is a really interesting article from the Atlantic. The article talks about the impact on crime patterns and poverty from the destruction of public housing projects and the resettlement of the residents in scattered locations around a city.

The point being: "the projects" are increasingly a thing of the past, as cities have knocked them down and moved the tenants to public and private housing in mixed neighborhoods. The impact of this is still being assessed, and is not clear-cut at all -- it has clearly destroyed communities, but with some real benefits, too.
posted by Forktine at 8:11 AM on June 14, 2008

There are "housing projects" all over but they are often a single NYCHA building that fits in with the neighborhood. So seconding that "the projects" refers to a large complex often of high rises. A few have specifically bad reputations, like Marcy, while others like the Queensbridge Houses or the complex on Ave D (two I had reason to regularly walk through) weren't viewed with much if any worry.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 8:17 AM on June 14, 2008

Sticherbeast's comment reminded me of one of the most disturbing articles on life in the projects I've ever read, about a woman terrorized in her ABLA Homes apartment in Chicago. The ABLA Homes have since been torn down, and replaced with mixed income developments.

They Came in Through the Bathroom Window
posted by SuperSquirrel at 8:22 AM on June 14, 2008

Fixed link.

They Came in Through the Bathroom Window
posted by SuperSquirrel at 8:34 AM on June 14, 2008

For a different take, Little Earth of United Tribes is a housing complex in Minneapolis, colloquailly called the "Indian projects" by some. It's had its ups and downs over the years, but seems to have held together. I knew people who lived there (and I occasionally got to visit/hang out) back 20-25 years ago, but that was before casinos, and also before 'gangsta culture': a lot's gone under the bridge since then. More recent views than mine: official site, City of Mpls, local journalism, 'nefarious native' on YouTube, Mother's Day Pow-Wow on YouTube.

Main difference I noticed was that there was a certain degree of pride and more-or-less "ownership" that you might not see in comparable public housing elsewhere.
posted by gimonca at 8:41 AM on June 14, 2008

Another difference to compare with some of the examples above: these buildings are two-story apartment complexes. You might still have design issues, but at least there's not the chokepoint-in-the-lobby situation described above.
posted by gimonca at 8:46 AM on June 14, 2008

It's certainly possible to expand the definition of "project" out either to mean "all public housing" (haven't heard it used much that way) or "public housing of the "project" class". I lived in a suburban project. It was a Section 8 housing complex comprised mostly of illegal immigrants, who bribed representatives of our absentee landlord. "Unsavory" is a gross understatement. My mother and I saw violence on a regular basis, although I came to appreciate the swift exaction of justice for those who stepped too far outside the community norms.
(A child molester, for instance, was beaten to within an inch of his life.)
posted by StrikeTheViol at 8:51 AM on June 14, 2008

To prevent the possibility of a pile-on, there were families there as well, who tended to move out in short order. I didn't really feel threatened per se, as the local gang members took a shine to me, but the atmosphere wasn't quite pleasant: my wheelchair ramp was used as a toilet fixture a few times.
posted by StrikeTheViol at 9:06 AM on June 14, 2008

On a related note, "The Power Broker" by Robert Caro is a biography of Robert Moses that details, among other things, Moses' push for housing projects in NY and their strident opposition by those who had to be relocated. It's an excellent book that illuminates a lot of the modern face of NYC.
posted by Brian James at 9:25 AM on June 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

Some more background: the Pruitt-Igoe housing projects in St. Louis were in many ways a model for both the construction and the later failure of various urban housing projects.

This video (from the movie Koyaanisqatsi) shows several of the original buildings being demolished by dynamite:

"St Louis, Missouri's Pruitt-Igoe public housing project received a prestigious award for modern architecture when it was built, but 20 years later it was declared a disaster. In 1972, after spending more than $5-million in failed attempts to cure massive physical and social problems, three highrises were demolished. A year later the remaining thirty, eleven storey buildings were dynamited. Charles Jencks has labelled this as the end of Modernism."
posted by iviken at 9:40 AM on June 14, 2008

Pictures of the NYC Projects.
posted by shownomercy at 9:53 AM on June 14, 2008

When I was working in Mantua Hall high rise in Philly it was in the process of being evacuated for demolition. The families there were being relocated to what are called scatter site placements in the community which is the trend in public policy right now. The scatter site placements look more like Section 8 housing in that they are apartment units or homes in the community but they aren't Section 8; it's still public housing, with a subsidy that is administered by the housing authority, as opposed to Section 8 subsidies that don't necessarily have to be associated with a housing authority. Basically, the terms and conditions of public housing and Section 8 are different; public housing is the deepest possible subsidy in terms of cost and duration whereas Section 8 generally runs out after a set period of time whereupon the family will be expected to assume market rent. The specifics are pretty negligible for lay people but Section 8 is technically not public housing, and scatter site public housing placements aren't Section 8. Scatter site is clearly better than the old way but I've been inside scatter site units in decent neighborhoods that were just as bleak as the old pj's. Scatter site units are more easily converted to crack houses, which is what I ran into a couple times, and those scenes were positively harrowing compared to the simple grinding misery of the high rises.

The low rise projects I've work in were every bit as gnarly as the high rises. Basically, public housing is for the poorest of the poor, and the conditions you find there can be really jaw dropping and soul crushing. I guess the bottom line is that poverty isn't pretty, and extreme poverty is really, really not pretty. I did a couple shorts on Philly's most notorious low rise project, too, I was really knee deep in it for a couple months last year. 1, 2, 3.
posted by The Straightener at 9:55 AM on June 14, 2008 [2 favorites]

My favorite NYC projects are Co-op City--the largest cooperative housing project in the world. The satellite view (1st link) should give you a nice sense of scale. It is positively nightmarish.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 1:11 PM on June 14, 2008

Here is an interesting twist on Public Housing in New Orleans. Before Hurricane Katrina residents of the projects felt that they were oppressed by the federal government, forcing them to live in sub-standard crime infested squalor.

Now that the federal government wants to demolish these hell holes and build mixed income housing, the residents are filing lawsuits to block the demolitions. Why? The residents want to return to their public housing. Now it seems that the projects were wonderful places and they have a right to live there.

Here is an article that was published in the Times Picayune, the newspaper of New Orleans.
posted by JujuB at 2:33 PM on June 14, 2008

Interesting article in the current Atlantic about the effects on crime of dispersing the tenants of urban housing projects out into smaller houses in neighborhoods across the city: crime goes way down where the projects were, and way up in the previously peaceful areas that are now home to a city-wide network of inner-city criminals.
posted by nicwolff at 2:56 PM on June 14, 2008

Times-Picayune: A fight broke out in the New Orleans City Council chambers as people opposed to the demolition of some of the city's housing projects struggled to exert some kind of influence on that morning's meeting. This is a video of that meeting.
posted by JujuB at 2:59 PM on June 14, 2008

Seconding Venkatesh's Gang Leader for a Day as an engaging, readable resource for this. It has fairly detailed descriptions of the physical set-up of the Robert Taylor Homes and how that affected the residents (outdoor hallways that were brutal in Chicago winters, and stairwells given over to prostitutes and drug users for their use). He spends a good deal of time analyzing how people made ends meet, including underground economies like childcare, haircuts, and auto repairs, as well as extensive cooperation among single mothers.

JujuB's input points to a classic dilemma of public housing projects: they're often awful to live in, but people are there because the other options are even worse. That column in the Times-Picayune presents a false dichotomy. The former project residents in NOLA aren't protesting because they're suddenly overcome with affection for the projects, but because the alternatives appear to be homelessness or leaving New Orleans. Maybe the new mixed-income projects will be wonderful, but there are unlikely to be enough affordable placements and in the meantime people are screwed.
posted by hippugeek at 5:08 PM on June 14, 2008

The so-called projects come in various flavors. Within a half-mile of where I live in New York City are four or five separate housing projects. A friend lives in one of them, where he has a rental studio with nice renovations and a standout view of the Hudson River. It's a bustling building, people constantly coming and going, with a good mix of people (i.e., racial makeup). It's also the largest single street address in the city.

There are more solidly black General Grant buildings across Broadway, as well as the middle-class Morningside complex the next block up. The latter is notable in that these buildings have terraces (often enclosed), whereas the former don't.

Other large complexes include Stuyvesant Town, which has been a longtime bastion of affordable housing. It was recently sold and is considered under threat to shift to market rates. There are other projects that could possibly suffer the same fate.

"The Power Broker" is an amazing book, and as thorough a history of NYC as you can find in one (if very thick) binding.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 7:01 PM on June 14, 2008

Stuy Town has more or less shifted to market rates and I don't think was ever considered a "projects." (It's always been privately owned, at least, I think.) It was built with the same sort of architecture, but built not for those in poverty but for World War II vets. Nowadays it is somewhere in the second half of the transition from an elderly population benefiting from "affordable housing" rates to being basically a weird petit-bourgeoisie enclave. In terms of the apartment you get for the money it actually seems like a decent deal from having visited various people there, with the downside of being slightly isolated from anything resembling the Manhattan nature if you don't live on the western edge.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 9:48 PM on June 14, 2008

"The Power Broker" by Robert Caro is a biography of Robert Moses

A companion piece to the above is Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs: she was a big opponent of Moses. She touches on the projects throughout her book. Her explanation of how poor neighborhoods typically un-slum over time, and why this process can not take place in the projects, creating "perpetual slums", is fascinating.
posted by BinGregory at 6:48 PM on June 15, 2008