Knickerbocker Village

The development is located at 10-12-14-16-18-20 Monroe Street and 30-32-34-36-38-40 Monroe Street, taking up two whole city blocks and bounded by Catherine Street, Monroe Street, Market Street, and Cherry Street. It is in ZIP Code 10002.

Real estate developer Fred F. French began construction of Knickerbocker Village in 1933 and completed it in 1934, during the Great Depression.{{Cite book |last=Mele |first=Christopher |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sewf0r5An-wC&dq=%2522Knickerbocker+Village%2522&pg=PA97 |title=Selling the Lower East Side: Culture, Real Estate, and Resistance in New York City |date=2000 |publisher=U of Minnesota Press |isbn=978-0-8166-3182-7 |pages=97, 105 |language=en}} The site was previously home to one hundred buildings that were deemed slums and torn down.{{Cite news |last=Hughes |first=C. J. |date=2017-12-06 |title=Two Bridges: Once Quiet, Now at the Edge of Change |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/06/realestate/living-in-two-bridges-lower-east-side.html |access-date=2021-10-29 |issn=0362-4331}} These actions were later criticized as some of the earliest gentrification in Manhattan.{{Cite book |last=Schwartz |first=Joel |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Oy3rUgKAWrYC&dq=%2522Knickerbocker+Village%2522&pg=PA34 |title=The New York Approach: Robert Moses, Urban Liberals, and Redevelopment of the Inner City |date=1993 |publisher=Ohio State University Press |isbn=978-0-8142-0587-7 |pages=35,114 |language=en}}

When the United States Congress authorized the RFC to make loans on slum clearance projects, French picked out the worst block in his holdings and presented it as a worthy subject for clearance. His choice was "Lung Block," so called because of its high tuberculosis mortality rate, where 650 families lived. French proposed to build a low-cost housing project. RFC lent 97% of the required $10 million. It was the first apartment development in the United States to receive federal funding. The average cost of "Lung Block" to Knickerbocker Village was high: $3,116 million, or $14 per square foot. The development's tax assessment was reduced by two-thirds to bring the monthly room rental down to the $12.50 stipulated by the RFC. Because the average rental before construction of the development had been about $5 a room, Knickerbocker Village no longer served the same low-income families that had lived in the "Lung Block" housing.{{Cite news |last=Levine |first=Lucie |date=2019-04-25 |title=The Lower East Side's forgotten Lung Block: The Italian community lost to 'slum clearance' |language=en-US |url=https://www.6sqft.com/the-lower-east-sides-forgotten-lung-block-the-italian-community-lost-to-slum-clearance/ |access-date=2021-10-29}} It provided 1,590 small apartments primarily to small middle-income families.{{Cite book |last=Bradley |first=Elizabeth L. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EU1Aug4nKkAC&dq=%2522Knickerbocker+Village%2522&pg=PA128 |title=Knickerbocker: The Myth behind New York |date=2009-05-27 |publisher=Rutgers University Press |isbn=978-0-8135-4862-3 |pages=128, 133 |language=en}} Eighty-two percent of the families who moved into the apartments were soon forced to move back to the slums they had left because of escalating rents.{{cn|date=April 2019}}

Due to French's poor actions as a landlord, the complex became known for its tenant organizing activities and creation of some of the first landlord-tenant laws and the current rent control regulations.{{Cite news |last=Morrison |first=James |date=1998 |title=Who in the World Was Fred F. French? |language=en |url=https://www.city-journal.org/html/who-world-was-fred-f-french-11719.html |access-date=2021-10-29}}{{Cite news |last=Kim |first=Elizabeth |date=2019-09-18 |title='We're Like Guinea Pigs': How An Affordable Lower East Side Complex Got Facial Recognition |language=en |url=https://gothamist.com/news/were-guinea-pigs-how-affordable-lower-east-side-complex-got-facial-recognition |access-date=2021-10-29}}

After fifty years, French sold the complex to new owners in the 1970s.

The property suffered severe damage from Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and ultimately received significant funds from the city's "Build it Back" program.{{cite web |url=http://www.thelodownny.com/leslog/2013/12/14-months-after-sandy-rent-rebates-coming-to-knickerbocker-village.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190412204444/http://www.thelodownny.com/leslog/2013/12/14-months-after-sandy-rent-rebates-coming-to-knickerbocker-village.html |archive-date=April 12, 2019 |access-date=April 14, 2019 |url-status=live |title=14 Months After Sandy, Rent Rebates Coming to Knickerbocker Village |website=The Lo-Down: News from the Lower East Side |author-last=Litvak |author-first=Ed |date=December 17, 2013}} – with image{{Cite news |last=Robinson |first=Edric |date=2021-10-27 |title=A look back at improvements made to a Sandy-impacted Manhattan development |language=en |url=https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2021/10/27/9-years-later--a-look-back-at-improvements-made-to-a-sandy-impacted-manhattan-development |access-date=2021-10-29}} The complex became one of the first affordable housing complexes with facial recognition technology.

A tax break in 2019 put an end to a five year fight to prevent a significant rent increase that would have made the property unaffordable to most tenants.{{Cite news |last=Spivack |first=Caroline |date=2019-11-01 |title=Lower East Side complex gets $3M tax break to preserve affordable apartments |language=en |url=https://ny.curbed.com/2019/11/1/20943681/knickerbocker-village-lower-east-side-tax-break-affordable-housing |access-date=2021-10-29}}

In the 2024 presidential election, Democratic candidate Kamala Harris carried New York City's Borough of Manhattan by 81% and the city itself by 68%, but Knickerbocker Village handed Donald Trump a 16 vote margin victory out of roughly 500 votes cast. The difference was 251 for Trump and 235 for Harris, which resulted in Trump's only precinct victory in Manhattan out of any of his three presidential runs.{{cite web |last=Tsvetkova |first=Maria |date=27 November 2024 |title=Trump's only Manhattan electoral win is this block on the Lower East Side |url=https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trumps-only-manhattan-electoral-win-is-this-block-lower-east-side-2024-11-27/ |access-date=27 November 2024 |work=Reuters}}

Notable residents have included:

• Cheng Chui Ping, 'Snakehead', human smuggler lived at 14 Monroe Street in the 1980s-early 1990s.{{cite web|url=http://nymag.com/arts/books/features/58055/ |title=Where the Snakehead Slithered |publisher=New York Media LLC }}
• Mark Olf, the Jewish folksinger and Folkways recording artist
• Peter C. Rhodes, reporter and writer
• Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg, who were convicted of spying for the Soviet Union and later executed, lived on the eleventh floor in 10 Monroe Street at Knickerbocker Village.{{cite web |url=http://www.mrbellersneighborhood.com/story.php?storyid=1455/ |website=Mr. Beller's Neighborhood |title=Knickerbocker Village |author-first=Phillip |author-last=Lopate |date=March 1, 2004 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160713192359/https://mrbellersneighborhood.com/2004/03/knickerbocker-village |archive-date=July 13, 2016 |url-status=live |access-date=April 14, 2019}}
• Frederik Pohl, the American editor and writer.The Way the Future Was: A Memoir, Ballantine, 1978.
• Benjamin Ruggiero of the Bonanno crime family, portrayed by Al Pacino in the movie Donnie Brasco{{cite web |url=https://cornerbycorner.wordpress.com/2015/04/16/catherine-street-monroe-street-knickerbocker-village/ |website=Corner By Corner |author-last=Walters |author-first=Christopher |title=Catherine Street & Monroe Street (Knickerbocker Village) |date=April 16, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161012131143/https://cornerbycorner.wordpress.com/2015/04/16/catherine-street-monroe-street-knickerbocker-village/|archive-date=October 12, 2016 |url-status=live |access-date=April 14, 2019}} – with images
• Tony Mirra, caporegime of the Bonanno crime family
• Robert Perrino, murdered superintendent of deliveries at the New York Post and associate of the Bonanno crime family
• Joseph D'Amico, Bonanno crime family mobster
• Alfred Embarrato, caporegime of the Bonanno crime family
• Nicholas Marangello, underboss of the Bonanno crime family
• Richard Cantarella, caporegime of the Bonanno crime family

{{reflist}}

• {{commons category inline|Knickerbocker Village}}
• {{cite web |url=https://collections.mcny.org/CS.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=24UAYWDO4GPHU&SMLS=1&RW=1849&RH=969 |website=Museum of the City of New York |title=Knickerbocker Village |access-date=April 14, 2019}}

{{Lower East Side}}

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Category:Lower East Side

Category:Public housing in Manhattan