Communist
27th April 2009, 15:41
sent by portside.org
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"Building Utopia"
A new documentary profiles the rise and fall of a
Depression-era utopian experiment in the Bronx.
By Joel Bleifuss
In These Times
April 13, 2009
http://www.inthesetimes.org/article/4355/building_utopia
In the 1920s, Jewish Communists
established the United Workers Cooperative Colony, one
of four cooperative apartment complexes built in the
Bronx.
As the country finds itself in the most severe economic
downturn since the Great Depression, people have been
looking back to the first Great Depression to learn from
FDR's administration and how it handled the crisis. But
it is not only New Deal politicians who have something
to teach us. In the 1930s, working people and their
movements responded to the economic turmoil in creative
and radical ways, and none more so than the hundreds of
New Yorkers who lived in the Coops (rhymes with
"loops").
At Home in Utopia, a documentary by Michal Goldman that
will air on PBS's "Independent Lens" on April 28, tells
the story of the United Workers Cooperative Colony in
the Bronx. When built in 1927, the Coops, with 740
apartments, was the largest cooperative housing project
in the United States-and the only one with hammers and
sickles carved into its limestone lintels.
On vacant land, located across from Bronx Park, recently
immigrated Eastern European Jews, most of them members
of the Communist Party and many of them garment workers,
created a community where they could put their socialist
ideals into practice.
The Coops wasn't the only Jewish utopian experiment in
the Bronx. The Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers
established the Amalgamated Houses, members of the
Socialist and Communist Parties built the Sholem
Aleichem Cooperative, and the Labor Zionists built the
Farband Houses.
In Yiddish-language newspapers, apartments in the Coops
were marketed to potential cooperators with slogans
like: "We want to build a fortress for the working class
against its enemies." Shares in the fortress were sold
for $250 per room.
In the film, Julius Lugovoy, speaking of his parents and
their comrades, says, "What they felt here was that they
were the owners of both their apartment and their fate."
The Coops founders, believing a brand new world was in
birth, saw their community as one more step toward the
inevitable revolution. Pete Rosenblum was 2 years old
when his family, who owned a nearby bakery, moved into
the Coops. "We were expected to conquer the world," he
says. "This was going to be the main headquarters."
People from all over the world came to see this workers'
paradise. The Coops library held 20,000 volumes-in
English, Russian and Yiddish. The courtyards were
landscaped into well-tended gardens. Youth clubs
flourished in basements that were the hive of communal
activity.
From the Coops, the residents set out to live their
ideals. No one could be evicted if they couldn't pay the
rent. Consequently, the Depression put a strain on the
Coops' finances, and in 1933, it headed to bankruptcy,
unable to pay its mortgage.
However, responding to popular unrest, 24 states passed
laws against mortgage foreclosures, including New York.
It was in this political climate that the leaders of the
Coops were able to negotiate a stay against foreclosure
and remain the masters of their castle.
Residents of the neighborhood surrounding the Coops,
however, were not so lucky. So, when families in the
neighborhood were faced with eviction, people from the
Coops stepped in.
"The women, my mother included, would go up into the
apartment," says Yok Ziebel, whose parents were both
union organizers. "They would crowd into the apartment
and would stand shoulder to shoulder, and the sheriff's
deputies could not get in to evict the families."
Harriete Nesin Bressack, whose father was a founding
member of the Communist Party, accompanied her mother on
these anti-eviction actions. "I remember yelling at the
policemen," says Bressack in the film. "They laughed and
said we came from little Moscow."
The Coops were also at the forefront of breaking racial
barriers. Coops residents organized to save the
Scottsboro Boys, nine young black men and boys who, in
1931, were accused in Scottsboro, Ala., of raping two
white women, fellow train-hoppers, in a railway car. And
in the early '30s, the Communist Party directed the
Coops' management to invite African-American families to
move in. As a result, it became one of the first
integrated housing complexes in the nation-and home to
some of the only black kids in America to speak Yiddish.
But fealty to the Communist Party and the resultant
ideological purity had its down side. In 1943, with
World War II having revived the economy, laws preventing
foreclosure were abandoned and the Coops were again
faced with foreclosure. The only way out was for Coops
residents to agree to a monthly rent increase of $1 per
room. Amid fierce arguments, they held a meeting to
decide their fate.
"They voted at that meeting to not pay the dollar-a-
month increase," says Rosenblum. "And one of the
arguments was that since we were the leaders of the
community, that if the Coops people voted to increase
their rent, all the other landlords would say, `Hey the
Coops raised their rent so therefore we can raise your
rent.' " The community lost the deeds to their buildings
and the BX Corporation were the new owners. Yet through
the 1950's, the radical spirit that built the Coops
continued with the tenants' association that dealt with
the new owners.
Of the four original cooperative housing projects built
by Jewish radicals in the Bronx, the only one to
flourish was the Amalgamated Cooperative, which is now
home to 1,500 families, including some former residents
of the Coops.
Yet the ideal that inspired the original Coops founders,
the belief that the common good trumps private gain,
survives through their children and grandchildren, many
of whom remain active in the progressive movement today.
_____________________________________________
Portside aims to provide material of interest
to people on the left that will help them to
interpret the world and to change it.
Frequently asked questions: portside.org/faq
Subscribe: portside.org/subscribe
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\---
"Building Utopia"
A new documentary profiles the rise and fall of a
Depression-era utopian experiment in the Bronx.
By Joel Bleifuss
In These Times
April 13, 2009
http://www.inthesetimes.org/article/4355/building_utopia
In the 1920s, Jewish Communists
established the United Workers Cooperative Colony, one
of four cooperative apartment complexes built in the
Bronx.
As the country finds itself in the most severe economic
downturn since the Great Depression, people have been
looking back to the first Great Depression to learn from
FDR's administration and how it handled the crisis. But
it is not only New Deal politicians who have something
to teach us. In the 1930s, working people and their
movements responded to the economic turmoil in creative
and radical ways, and none more so than the hundreds of
New Yorkers who lived in the Coops (rhymes with
"loops").
At Home in Utopia, a documentary by Michal Goldman that
will air on PBS's "Independent Lens" on April 28, tells
the story of the United Workers Cooperative Colony in
the Bronx. When built in 1927, the Coops, with 740
apartments, was the largest cooperative housing project
in the United States-and the only one with hammers and
sickles carved into its limestone lintels.
On vacant land, located across from Bronx Park, recently
immigrated Eastern European Jews, most of them members
of the Communist Party and many of them garment workers,
created a community where they could put their socialist
ideals into practice.
The Coops wasn't the only Jewish utopian experiment in
the Bronx. The Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers
established the Amalgamated Houses, members of the
Socialist and Communist Parties built the Sholem
Aleichem Cooperative, and the Labor Zionists built the
Farband Houses.
In Yiddish-language newspapers, apartments in the Coops
were marketed to potential cooperators with slogans
like: "We want to build a fortress for the working class
against its enemies." Shares in the fortress were sold
for $250 per room.
In the film, Julius Lugovoy, speaking of his parents and
their comrades, says, "What they felt here was that they
were the owners of both their apartment and their fate."
The Coops founders, believing a brand new world was in
birth, saw their community as one more step toward the
inevitable revolution. Pete Rosenblum was 2 years old
when his family, who owned a nearby bakery, moved into
the Coops. "We were expected to conquer the world," he
says. "This was going to be the main headquarters."
People from all over the world came to see this workers'
paradise. The Coops library held 20,000 volumes-in
English, Russian and Yiddish. The courtyards were
landscaped into well-tended gardens. Youth clubs
flourished in basements that were the hive of communal
activity.
From the Coops, the residents set out to live their
ideals. No one could be evicted if they couldn't pay the
rent. Consequently, the Depression put a strain on the
Coops' finances, and in 1933, it headed to bankruptcy,
unable to pay its mortgage.
However, responding to popular unrest, 24 states passed
laws against mortgage foreclosures, including New York.
It was in this political climate that the leaders of the
Coops were able to negotiate a stay against foreclosure
and remain the masters of their castle.
Residents of the neighborhood surrounding the Coops,
however, were not so lucky. So, when families in the
neighborhood were faced with eviction, people from the
Coops stepped in.
"The women, my mother included, would go up into the
apartment," says Yok Ziebel, whose parents were both
union organizers. "They would crowd into the apartment
and would stand shoulder to shoulder, and the sheriff's
deputies could not get in to evict the families."
Harriete Nesin Bressack, whose father was a founding
member of the Communist Party, accompanied her mother on
these anti-eviction actions. "I remember yelling at the
policemen," says Bressack in the film. "They laughed and
said we came from little Moscow."
The Coops were also at the forefront of breaking racial
barriers. Coops residents organized to save the
Scottsboro Boys, nine young black men and boys who, in
1931, were accused in Scottsboro, Ala., of raping two
white women, fellow train-hoppers, in a railway car. And
in the early '30s, the Communist Party directed the
Coops' management to invite African-American families to
move in. As a result, it became one of the first
integrated housing complexes in the nation-and home to
some of the only black kids in America to speak Yiddish.
But fealty to the Communist Party and the resultant
ideological purity had its down side. In 1943, with
World War II having revived the economy, laws preventing
foreclosure were abandoned and the Coops were again
faced with foreclosure. The only way out was for Coops
residents to agree to a monthly rent increase of $1 per
room. Amid fierce arguments, they held a meeting to
decide their fate.
"They voted at that meeting to not pay the dollar-a-
month increase," says Rosenblum. "And one of the
arguments was that since we were the leaders of the
community, that if the Coops people voted to increase
their rent, all the other landlords would say, `Hey the
Coops raised their rent so therefore we can raise your
rent.' " The community lost the deeds to their buildings
and the BX Corporation were the new owners. Yet through
the 1950's, the radical spirit that built the Coops
continued with the tenants' association that dealt with
the new owners.
Of the four original cooperative housing projects built
by Jewish radicals in the Bronx, the only one to
flourish was the Amalgamated Cooperative, which is now
home to 1,500 families, including some former residents
of the Coops.
Yet the ideal that inspired the original Coops founders,
the belief that the common good trumps private gain,
survives through their children and grandchildren, many
of whom remain active in the progressive movement today.
_____________________________________________
Portside aims to provide material of interest
to people on the left that will help them to
interpret the world and to change it.
Frequently asked questions: portside.org/faq
Subscribe: portside.org/subscribe