Rent, Tenants, and Housing in 20th Century New York City

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Why housing? Why New York City? New York City is a city of renters. According to the Mayor's Office to Protect Tenants, "As of 2017, New York City had 3,469,240 total housing units. Of these units, 1,038,200 are owner-occupied and 2,183,064 are renter-occupied." Has New York City always been a city of renters? How has it remained a city of renters? New York City is a particularly salient locale to examine rent and renters because of its labor and tenant strength, growth of rent regulations, and real estate speculation. As historian Joshua Freeman writes in Working Class New York , "New York workers and their allies put in place a far more extensive web of social benefits than elsewhere. This New York social democracy, which encompassed housing, health care, education, the arts, and civil rights, was intensely urban in its origins, strategies, and beliefs." In order to understand how tenants have organized themselves against tenement safety violations, building demolitions, or displacement; or how tenants sought legal and legislative methods, as well as direct action; or how landlords, developers, and real estate speculators responded to tenant demands, this course will use primary and secondary historical texts to examine housing in New York City over the course of the twentieth century, as sometimes indicative of and sometimes unique from the rest of the nation.