Neighborhood Activism in Planning for New York City, 1945-1975

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (6) ◽  
pp. 1261-1289
Author(s):  
Marci Reaven
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
York City ◽  
City Planning ◽  
Social Innovation ◽  
Democratic Action ◽  
Cumulative Process ◽  
The Times

The practice of city planning in New York City was transformed in the decades after World War II. At the start of this period, the system was characterized by little citizen involvement and no transparency. By the mid-1970s, citizens had become accepted participants in land-use decision-making, and formal procedures for involving citizens in planning had been written into local law. This article explores how this turning point in citizen participation came about by focusing on the Cooper Square Committee—an ambitious practitioner of neighborhood activism on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Setting the Committee’s quest in the participatory context of the times uncovers a groundswell of voluntary groups who used the city’s neighborhoods as forums for democratic action. Along with government actors, planning professionals, and civic and social agencies, such groups contributed to the transformation in planning, which developed not by premeditated campaign but by a cumulative process of public problem-solving and social innovation.

scholarly journals Police Misconduct, Community Opposition, and Urban Governance in New York City, 1945–1965

2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 643-668 ◽  
Author(s):  
Themis Chronopoulos
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
York City ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Police Department ◽  
Police Misconduct ◽  
World War ◽  
Police Reform ◽  
Black Freedom

In the post–World War II period, the police department emerged as one of the most problematic municipal agencies in New York City. Patrolmen and their superiors did not pay much attention to crime; instead they looked the other way, received payoffs from organized crime, performed haphazardly, and tolerated conditions that were unacceptable in a modern city with global ambitions. At the same time, patrolmen demanded deference and respect from African American civilians and routinely demeaned and brutalized individuals who appeared to be challenging their authority. The antagonism between African Americans and the New York Police Department (NYPD) intensified as local and national black freedom organizations paid more attention to police behavior and made police reform one of their main goals.

Critique of the Citizen Participation Movement in Education

1977 ◽  
Vol 159 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marilyn Gittell
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
York City ◽  
Governance Structure ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Community Control ◽  
Bargaining Process ◽  
School Budgets ◽  
Adequate Provision

The demand for community participation in education has resulted in many school systems adopting some form of decentralization. In many cases, this “participation” has been illusory. The decentralization which occurred did not result in increased decision making power being allocated to the community, but rather in merely physically decentralizing the existing school bureaucracy. The current situation in New York City provides a number of insights into what can be expected as school budgets are cut as a result of fewer resources and decreases in school enrollments. The community school boards, which had no input into the collective bargaining process, are now pitted against the professional educational establishment — the Board of Education and the United Federation of Teachers. Both in New York City and elsewhere, those who control the school bureaucracy have excluded the community from playing a significant role in the policy-making process. The governance structure of American education must be changed so that the community will have greater control over its educational institutions. Properly instituted, community control is an instrument of social change. If adequate provision is made for the technical resources to carry out this new role, citizen participation has the potential for providing new insights into our concepts of professionalism and our general theories of educational expertise.

“The Child Is Never Basically Bad”

2019 ◽  
pp. 13-38
Author(s):  
Carl Suddler
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
York City ◽  
Juvenile Justice System ◽  
Youth Crime ◽  
World War ◽  
Criminal Behaviors ◽  
Depression Era ◽  
The City

This chapter focuses on the juvenile justice system and its related efforts to address youth crime in New York City before World War II. From the 1930s to the onset of the war, there was a nationwide tension about how to address crime. In New York City, this debate had racial, political, and social implications that persisted beyond the period. On one side, there were those, such as New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia, who believed crime in the city was rampant and that an increased carceral sovereignty, including preventive policing, was critical to establish order. On the other side, there were those, such as Jane M. Bolin, who rejected such logic and aspired to advance a neo-Progressive rationale that emphasized the correction of social ills contributing to criminal behaviors—regardless of the numbers. This chapter provides a sketch of Harlem during the Depression era, with an emphasis on black youths and various crime-prevention effortsthey encountered.

Florence Jaffray Harriman

2019 ◽  
pp. 54-77
Author(s):  
Philip Nash
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
York City ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
World War ◽  
The Face ◽  
Party Activist ◽  
Franklin Roosevelt

This chapter looks at the tenure of Florence Jaffray Harriman, minister to Norway (1937–1941). Harriman was a prominent New York City socialite and Democratic Party activist. President Franklin Roosevelt agreed to send the sixty-six-year-old Harriman to Norway because it was a small, neutral country unlikely to become involved in a European war. When World War II broke out in 1939, Harriman was caught in the midst of it. She performed admirably in the episode involving the City of Flint, a US merchant vessel captured by the Germans, and even more so when the Nazis invaded Norway in April 1940. Harriman risked her life trying to keep up with the fleeing Norwegian leadership, which was being pursued by German forces. Her performance in the face of such danger earned her widespread praise, further strengthening the case for female ambassadors.

The Swash and the Buckler

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan K. Rode
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
York City ◽  
Santa Fe ◽  
World War ◽  
Santa Fe Trail

Curtiz directed The Sea Hawk, an epic swashbuckler starring Errol Flynn. Shot on the studio’s Stage 21, which could be flooded with water and included two hydraulically operated ship sets, the picture was personally crafted by Curtiz, who shot unauthorized action scenes instead of relying on stock footage that Hal Wallis wanted to use. The picture was a smash, although Flynn had become increasingly upset about his typecasting and working with Curtiz. Also explored is a famous Curtiz anecdote that illustrates the director’s total focus on realism and disregard for the safety of performers. After a whirlwind trip to New York City, Curtiz directed the notoriously inaccurate Santa Fe Trail, with Flynn and de Havilland, and an outstanding version of Jack London’s The Sea Wolf, starring Edward G. Robinson, Ida Lupino, and John Garfield. Curtiz and Flynn had a final falling-out during Dive Bomber, a Technicolor tribute to the aerial navy. Flynn physically attacked the director, and the pair never worked together again.Although bereft of Warner’s top male star, Curtiz would move on to his greatest films as World War II began.

New Wind

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Cornell
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
York City ◽  
College Graduates ◽  
Occupy Wall Street ◽  
World War ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
Little Magazines ◽  
New Generation

Something of a revolution in anarchist thought occurred during the 1940s and early 1950s, much of it centered in New York City. World War II divided the small contingent of U.S. anarchists active during the Depression years, as many movement veterans reluctantly endorsed the Allies as the only viable means of defeating fascism. However, a new generation of activists -- many of them recent college graduates -- established journals and organizations that rejected participation in the war, often on pacifist grounds, and that began to reevaluate central tenets of anarchist theory. This chapter explores the milieu that developed in New York City, Woodstock, NY, and rural New Jersey at mid-century, focusing on three "little magazines" that supported and influenced one another: Politics, Why?, and Retort. Although anarchism was at a numerical nadir during these years, a tight-knit community of artists, theorists, and radical pacifists developed ideas, tactics, and aesthetics that reshaped anarchism so fundamentally that they remain prominent today in the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations.

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