Vol. VII, No. 2.Pages

Vol. VII, No. 2, 2021 1840s Lower Fifth Avenue showcased the Italianate style that was part of New York City’s new architectural aesthetic. See “Old New York: Part 3—The Go-Go Years (1825–1860),” p. 7. Image: The Historical Atlas of New York City. !1 Vol. VII, No. 2, 2021 Contents Saving America’s Cities: P. 2 Saving Ed Logue and the Creation of Roosevelt Island America’s Cities: Ed Logue and the by Robin Lynn Creation of Roosevelt Island, by Robin Lynn In the early 1980s, I invited Ed Logue to my home on Roosevelt Island. I knew of his role as the former president and chief executive of the NY P. 7 Old New York: State Urban Development Corporation (UDC), the agency that Governor Part 3—The Go-Go Rockefeller formed in 1968 to build subsidized low- and moderate- Years (1825–1860) income housing throughout New York State. I wanted to meet the mastermind behind the audacious plan that created P. 11 RI Inspires the our “new-town-in-town,” allowing me to live in the Visual Arts: The Blue middle of the East River, raise my three children Dragon among appealing open spaces, and benefit from an P. 12 RIHS Calendar unlikely form of mass transit—the tram—connecting us to 59th Street. To my surprise, Logue accepted my luncheon call. “Residents never invite you back,” he said to my husband Larry, and I had. Now, Lizabeth Cohen has published Saving America’s Cities , Ed Logue and the Struggle to Renew Urban America in the Suburban Age (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2019). This fascinating book tracks Logue’s work, not just in developing Roosevelt Island in the 1970s (as head of UDC), but redeveloping New Haven in the 1950s, Boston in the 1960s, and the South Bronx from Ed Logue portrayed on the 1978–85. Cohen, the current Howard Mumford cover of Dr. Cohen’s book. Blackwell’s Jones Professor of American Studies in the History Department at Harvard University, brings Logue’s Almanac backers and foes to life, while focusing on his vision to revitalize post-war cities. She spends considerable time documenting the rise and demise of Published quarterly in UDC, which had transformed Welfare Island into Roosevelt Island. February, May, August and November. Back Cohen’s meticulously researched and accessible volume, which won the issues may be Bancroft Prize for history in 2020, delves into the complex world of city viewed at rihs.us. planning through the lens, as she states in her introduction, of “who’s in Click on Blackwell’s charge, who should have a say, who benefits, and who pays the bill.” Almanac at left. Logue, Cohen writes, was enormously proud of his work on Roosevelt Island. He aimed to create what he called a “socially engineered Publisher: community,” which embodied his goals for successful post-war urban Judith Berdy living: a mixed-income, mixed-race, handicapped accessible community, with buildings designed by progressive architects working to build Writer/editor: housing for all and using innovative building technology. Bobbie Slonevsky Contributing writer: Logue couldn’t come over to the island often enough while our Robin Lynn community was being built. Cohen quotes a New York Times reporter’s description of him as, at least once a week, “plunging in his bear-like way © 2021, Roosevelt around the site—old corduroys, green Shetland sweater, shirttail hanging Island Historical out and no hard-hat covering his stack of grey hair; slow-speaking, fast- Society thinking, an interesting mixture of charm and combativeness.” Cohen helped put Logue’s comments to me—those that I remember, lo, these !2 Vol. VII, No. 2, 2021 many years later—into context. But I wanted urban renewal. But I argue in the book that more. And although I could not invite we are mistaken if we assume that urban Lizabeth Cohen over to schmooze about her renewal meant the same thing everywhere, book, I could contact her for the Roosevelt from its establishment in 1949 until the Island Historical Society. mid-1970s, when the federal government under President Nixon withdrew funding for Robin: Thank you for letting me email housing and cities. Instead, I suggest, questions to you. For those who don’t know someone like Logue made mistakes, but he Edward J. Logue, could you please introduce also learned on the job. And over time, he our island’s experimented planner and with new, less tell us why damaging he is strategies for important. saving cities, which he Professor deeply valued Cohen: Ed and felt were Logue may in grave not be a trouble. The familiar UDC’s three name to New Towns, most of which people Roosevelt today. But Island was in his own one, were a time, he way of doing was well things better. known as a leader in Not all urban the effort to renewers revitalize were like American Governor Nelson Rockefeller signing the bill into law creating the New York Logue, of cities which State Urban Development Corporation on April 10, 1968. Credit: New York course. I were under State Archives. show how, for severe example, his threat from the explosion of suburbs in the goals were much more progressive than 1950s and 1960s. And it was not just those of Robert Moses. Roosevelt Island was residents who were fleeing. So too were so precious to Logue because it embodied business headquarters, manufacturing his hope that city neighborhoods could be plants, and retail stores, which meant that made more diverse in income, race, age, and many jobs and urban attractions were accessibility, with affordable housing and relocating to more decentralized metropolitan good schools available to all, who were living areas. side-by-side. To his mind, financial support from the federal government was key to In New Haven, Boston, and New York, Logue achieving this rather utopian goal of a more took advantage of federal funding for what socially and economically integrated America. was then called “urban renewal.” Many of the efforts undertaken to save cities ultimately Robin: Every morning as he shaved, Logue proved terribly damaging to their survival: for would look out his window onto Welfare example, when working-class neighborhoods Island, and that was how, he said to me, he were torn down to make way for new became curious about the place. (From highways or housing that would retain and Cohen’s research I learned that his attract middle-class residents. I have no apartment was at 1 East End Avenue). With interest in whitewashing the worst abuses of all the affordable housing projects he had !3 Vol. VII, No. 2, 2021 under construction across the state a champion of modern architecture? Why did (eventually, 115), and the pressure he was he equate “social engineering” with the under to quickly complete them, why was he modern movement in architecture? so intent on building an entire new town? What lessons did Logue learn from his work Cohen: Logue wanted as much as possible redeveloping New Haven in the 1950s, and to ensure that his projects avoided the Boston in the 1960s, that determined his cookie-cutter look—an alienating experience approach to developing Roosevelt Island? of public housing. That goal included seeking alternatives to high-rise “tower-in-the-park” Cohen: The New Town strategy arose out of buildings. The UDC’s Marcus Garvey Park Logue’s growing recognition that demolition- Village project in Brooklyn, for example, style urban renewal was not the answer. His innovated what was called “low-rise, high earliest efforts in New Haven had suffered density housing,” achieving the same number from this clearance approach. He sought of units by designing the structures alternatives in Boston. But the real differently. breakthrough came in New York State. As he told colleagues in 1970, “We cannot...put all Interestingly, just when UDC was collapsing the emphasis on rebuilding, tearing down and in 1975, it was in the midst of sponsoring an rehabilitating in the inner city.” architectural competition for a new, more promising prototype for high-rise-style So, instead, he sought available land where subsidized housing on Roosevelt Island. In new housing could be constructed. “I don’t selecting architects, Logue wanted to attract have to condemn it. I don’t have to relocate a mix of up-and-coming and established families. I don’t have to demolish any architects. He hoped to encourage them to buildings,” he explained. He also broke with make housing design more of a priority. But the modernist orthodoxy of separating he was also wary of letting architects do too functions, and sought to combine living, much of their own thing and, in that way, was working, schooling, shopping, and recreating a demanding client. He said, “If you leave in one planned community. architects alone, they will make a statement.” So he established mechanisms like UDC’s Robin: I remember that Logue said he hired famous “live-ins,” where architects and staff many different architects to develop alike had to stay over in projects nearing Roosevelt Island so that no one firm could completion to learn what worked and what dominate his project. Logue, you make clear, didn’t. liked to be in control. What were Logue’s criteria for selecting architects? Why was he Cover photo of a promotional brochure published in 1974 by the Roosevelt Island Development Corporation, a subsidiary of the New York State Urban Development Corporation. !4 Vol. VII, No. 2, 2021 Robin: When I moved to the island in 1980, I walkways and the mini-schools, he hoped, was only vaguely familiar with UDC and would be scattered throughout the many Logue’s social goals.

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