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9/7/12 With Public Housing Under Attack, Can An Ex‑Lehman Banker Save New York’s Last Affordable Apart… BETABEAT POLITICKER GALLERISTNY VELVET ROPER COMMERCIAL VSL POLITICKERNJ SEARCH OBSERVER TROUBLING DEVELOPMENTS With Public Housing Under Attack, Can The Body Politic: A Trove An Ex­Lehman Banker Save New York’s of New Books Examines Some Very Specific Last Affordable Apartments? Anatomy Bigger than Boston, dicier than Detroit, NYCHA is a city unto itself, and John Rhea is its mayor—and traffic cop and garbage man and teacher. By Matt Chaban 9/04 8:15pm Location: Enter a neighborhood or street Twitter 22 Facebook 9 Reddit LinkedIn 2 Email Print Price Range Any to Any Type Bed (#) Bath (#) Any Any Any SEARCH LISTINGS Brooklyn Is the Second Most Expensive Place to Live in the U.S. The Two Brooklyns: Poverty Still Plagues Artisanal Paradise Rent the Woolworth Mansion for $150,000 a Month You Didn’t Build That: Did President Obama Take Credit for 1 WTC in Last Night’s DNC Speech? Housing, housing, everywhere, and not a room to rent. (Courtesy NYCHA) Keeping It Contextual: City Stepping off the elevator on the 12th floor of 250 Broadway, you pass by a dozen photographs Planning Commission Approves of idyllic, almost bucolic housing projects. The dogwoods are in bloom, matching the pink Rezonings in West Harlem, Bed­ Stuy matting within the frames. That the pictures are a bit faded only adds to the utopianism of the scenes: families frolic in green grass courtyards, the sun is always shining. These days, the picture is far less rosy: Apartments are overcome with toxic black mold, riven with cavernous leaks, overrun with rats, sometimes all three and then some. Repairs? Fuggetaboutit. Those will be years away. And that’s just inside; outside, it’s a war zone. Googler Waxes Poetic About Twitter, the ‘Benjamin Button of Startups’ Or so the city’s tabloids would have you believe. Have Yourself a Merry Little CryptoParty French Guy Builds What Basically Amounts to a But the Housing Authority—or NYCHA, as almost everyone calls it, pronouncing it like some Bong for Food observer.com/2012/09/john‑rhea‑nycha‑public‑housing‑washington‑crisis/?show=all 1/11 9/7/12 With Public Housing Under Attack, Can An Ex‑Lehman Banker Save New York’s Last Affordable Apart… bureaucratic sneeze—represents much more than those run­down apartments we read about, of which there are fewer than the Stalinist Accusations Fly in Queens State Senate Race coverage suggests. Schumer Defends Biden’s Intelligence From Giuliani’s Criticism With more than 420,000 residents, NYCHA has a population that surpasses Atlanta. You Didn’t Build That: Did President Obama Take Credit for 1 WTC in Last Night’s DNC Factor in the 232,000 people who receive Speech? Section 8 vouchers, which NYCHA oversees, and it is larger than Denver, Seattle or Boston. The difference is that this mythical city would be made up of only the very worst Purloined Pre­Dada Picabia Painting Recovered, neighborhoods—a world of Brownsvilles and Returned Stapletons and Mott Havens without the Frieze Announces Its 2012 Talks Program Park Slopes and Upper East Sides to support World’s First Pizza Museum Has ‘the Largest Housing homies. (Ed Reed/Mayor’s Office) them. This is both NYCHA’s biggest problem Collection of Pizza Memorabilia’ in the World and its greatest virtue, a blessing and a curse passed down from Robert Moses, Fiorello LaGuardia and Franklin Roosevelt. Despite the eternal outcry over NYCHA’s shortcomings, most agree that the neighborhoods the projects inhabit would be even worse off without them. Who else is going to provide so many residents Fashion’s Night in Hell: Why We Hate Fashion’s with affordable, if not always attractive, housing, in a city that has less and less? Night Out The Oscar: De La Renta Honored by the Couture Which is why the agency’s decline is so frustrating to so many. None more so than John Rhea, Council the man Mayor Bloomberg charged three years ago with fixing the problems—so many It’s Girls Night Out at New York Premiere of problems spread among so much real estate: 178,000 apartments in 334 complexes scattered Bachelorette across all five boroughs. Of average height and trim build, Mr. Rhea still dresses like he’s headed to work at his last job, as a managing director at Barclays. On the morning of a two­hour interview with The Observer Media Briefs: Fox News Chief Roger Ailes in the chairman’s conference room (as the sign outside the door said), his suit had a fine Looking For a 'Fair and Balanced' Salary pinstripe. He wore a white shirt and red tie patterned with tiny Barrel of Monkey monkeys, Tom Brokaw Takes Ambien Before Morning Joe hand­in­hand. Media Briefs: BuzzMedia Loses a Big Bill While he refuses to believe NYCHA’s troubles are intractable, he admits they are grave. “To me, the problem with NYCHA is gridlock. It’s no one actor but things piling up,” Mr. Rhea said. “It starts with an accident, then people are blocking the intersection, one truck is sticking out a little too far so one lane is jammed down. Everyone is trying to merge into fewer lanes. The Jason Reitman Assembles Dream Team For American Beauty Reading: Bryan Cranston, traffic lights aren’t changing.” Mr. Rhea sees himself as public housing’s traffic cop. Adam Driver, Christina Hendricks Perform (Video) As if trapped in Bizarro World, NYCHA’s story runs counter to the city’s resurgence of the past Fashion’s Night in Hell: Why We Hate Fashion's two decades. When New York was in decline, the housing authority remained, thanks to Night Out federal largesse, a shining beacon of hope in the city even as everything around it was The One Question Not Answered at the DNC or consumed. Now the situation has flipped. As the city swells, NYCHA has been suffering, thanks RNC: How Real Is the Zombie Apocalypse Threat? largely to neglect in Washington, where almost all of the authority’s funds come from. In many ways, the debate surrounding NYCHA mirrors those raging throughout the country over the role of government in society. The Observer’s Resident Madonna Hater (Sort Of) Changes His Tune “It was the place to be, everyone was always hanging out at our place,” said City Councilwoman Rosie Mendez, who grew up in the Williamsburg Houses, New York’s second World's First Pizza Museum Has 'the Largest Collection of Pizza Memorabilia' in the World oldest housing development (the complex was even made a city landmark in 2003). “Even when the city started to get really bad in the ’70s and ’80s, NYCHA still had it all.” To Do Sunday: Gym Dandy Now representing the East Village and the Lower East Side, Ms. Mendez has one of the largest tracts of public housing in her district. Since joining the council in 2006, she has chaired its public housing committee. She is a fierce advocate and frequent critic of NYCHA, but she is Wells Fargo Worker Canned for Defrauding a also quick to credit Mayor Bloomberg for supporting the authority when few others will. Laundry Machine Paves Way for Class­Action Suit “When John Rhea came in, I was skeptical,” she said. “I didn’t think we needed a banker, but I ECB Board Approves Bond­Buying Plan; Falcone Battles With LightSquared Creditors: Roundup have to say, he’s done a good job. We’re seeing progress, but I don’t know if it’s enough. Given observer.com/2012/09/john‑rhea‑nycha‑public‑housing‑washington‑crisis/?show=all 2/11 9/7/12 With Public Housing Under Attack, Can An Ex‑Lehman Banker Save New York’s Last Affordable Apart… the situation we’re in, I don’t know if any one person could fix it.” U.S. Appeals Court Revives Securities Cases You Didn't Build That: Did President Obama Take Credit for 1 WTC in Last Night's DNC Speech? 'I Hate Brooklyn' Writer Has Warmed To The Borough. A Little. Keeping It Contextual: City Planning Commission Approves Rezonings in West Harlem, Bed­Stuy Betray of Game: On Today's Penalty­Deserving NFL Commentary Two Champions Power Play First Houses ground breaking. (La Guardia and Wagner Archives) email address On December 3, 1935, Roosevelt, LaGuardia, Moses, Congressman Robert F. Wagner and what seemed like half the city crammed onto the corner of First Avenue and East Third Street to open First Houses. Thus began an era of American progress, a social experiment, affordable housing for all, or at least those fortunate enough to win the housing lottery. Before long, LaGuardia and his New Deal pals were on 105th Street for the East River Houses, and in Williamsburg, Red Hook, Queensbridge, ceremonial silver shovels in hand, breaking ground on dozens of new housing projects. By 1939, the mayor was regularly traveling around the country, advising cities like Newark, Providence and Philadelphia on how to follow suit. As important as affordable housing was, the construction was as much a jobs program as anything, a salve to the Depression. “In so many instances, it was a pioneering program,” said Ingrid Gould Ellen, long­time director of NYU’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy. The Great Migration, the Great Society and white flight, aided by discriminatory practices in the real estate industry, conspired to leave NYCHA’s developments with largely minority and lower­income tenants, rather than the economic mix that had been hoped for.

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