There’s more to New York City’s Roosevelt Island than some random landmarks and a place to see the skyline. In this first episode of Black in the Core we’ll see the tourist sites, but we’ll also dig deeper.
We’ll examine the island’s fascinating past, evolving present, and likely future, joined by some long-time island residents. In its early days of being called Blackwell’s Island and Welfare Island, it was a place of hospitals, asylums, and prisons. It was renamed Roosevelt Island in the 1970s, when New York officials decided to create, in the words of the master plan, a “multi-mix community in every way”.
Celebrated architects and urban planners were brought in to design a brand new island town in the middle of the metropolis. They combined progressive architecture and technology with socioeconomic guidelines, and a racially and economically diverse community was born. Clean, safe, car-free, and surrounded by parks and water, it was a success story…as close to an urban utopia as you can imagine.
But now, decades later, the affordable housing is being transitioned to luxury units and a new technical college is pushing prices even higher. The Black, brown, and working class white people who formed a unique, close-knit community are being economically pushed off the island by wealthy newcomers. Will this oasis in the city be turned into just another Manhattan neighborhood, with no sense of community or soul? Is Roosevelt Island falling prey to what you might call the plague of gentrification? Watch this episode to learn more.
2000 Median Income: $49,976.
2010 Median Income: $76,250.
47% jump in 10 years!
* NOTE:
Riverwalk Park, Building #8 of the Riverwalk complex, will have app. 340 units of affordable housing. However, the total percentage of affordable units in Riverwalk’s nine buildings will only be 40%. The other 60% are market rate, instead of 25% market rate as originally envisioned for the island.
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Black In The Core Visits And Reports On Fascinating History, Evolving Present And Likely Future Of Roosevelt Island – Sees Gentrification And A Stolen Dream For Working And Middle Class People
https://rooseveltislander.blogspot.com/2020/11/black-in-core-visits-and-reports-on.html
Stop the privatization of Roosevelt Island’s public spaces
https://www.change.org/p/rioc-board-of-directors-stop-the-privatization-of-roosevelt-island-s-public-spaces/c
“The Island Nobody Knows”, 1969 Master Plan by Philip Johnson and John Burgee: https://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15324coll10/id/173995/
Roosevelt Island Daily Newspaper:
https://rooseveltislanddaily.news/category/roosevelt-island-news/
Inside information from John Johansen, one of the original architects of Northtown:
https://www.johnmjohansen.com/Roosevelt-Island.html
Four Freedoms Park Conservancy:
https://www.fdrfourfreedomspark.org/
Cornell Tech:
https://tech.cornell.edu/campus/
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