Co-op City, Bronx


Co-op City is a cooperative housing development located in the northeast section of the borough of the Bronx in New York City. It is bounded by Interstate 95 to the southwest, west, and north and the Hutchinson River Parkway to the east and southeast, and is partially in the Baychester and Eastchester neighborhoods. With 43,752 residents as of the 2010 United States census, it is the largest housing cooperative in the world. It is in New York City Council District 12.
Co-op City was formerly marshland before being occupied by an amusement park called Freedomland U.S.A. from 1960 to 1964. Construction began in 1966 and the first residents moved in two years later, though the project was not completed until 1973. The construction of the community was sponsored by the United Housing Foundation and financed with a mortgage loan from New York State Housing Finance Agency.
The community is part of Bronx Community District 10 and its ZIP Code is 10475. Nearby attractions include Pelham Bay Park, Orchard Beach and City Island.

Description

Co-op City's 15,372 residential units are composed of 35 high-rise buildings and seven clusters of townhouses, making it the largest residential development in the United States. It sits on, though only 20% of the land was developed, leaving many green spaces. The apartment buildings range from 24 to 33 floors. There are four types of buildings: 10 Triple Core, 10 chevron, 15 tower, and 236 town houses. The townhouses are three stories high and have a separate garden apartment and upper duplex apartment.
This "city within a city" also has eight parking garages, three shopping centers, a educational park, including a high school, two middle schools, and three grade schools. More than 40 offices are rented by doctors, lawyers, and other professionals, and there are 15 houses of worship. Spread throughout the community are six nursery schools and day care centers, four basketball courts, and five baseball diamonds. The adjacent Bay Plaza Shopping Center has a 13-screen multiplex movie theater, department stores, and a supermarket.
The development was built on landfill, and the original marshland still surrounds it. The building foundations extend down to bedrock through 50,000 pilings, but the land surrounding Co-op's structures settles and sinks a fraction of an inch each year, creating cracks in sidewalks and entrances to buildings.

Street names

Most streets in the community are named after notable historical personalities. Generally, streets in section one begin with the letter "D", section two begins with the letter "C", section three with the letter "A", section four with the letter "B" and section five with the letter "E". Baychester Avenue is in section 1
  • Adler Place – named for archaeologist Cyrus Adler
  • Alcott Place – named for author Louisa May Alcott, it is located directly above the former path of Rattlesnake Brook, which originated in Edenwald
  • Aldrich Street – named for author Thomas Bailey Aldrich
  • Asch Loop – named for author Sholem Asch
  • Bellamy Loop – named for writer Edward Bellamy, it was located on the eastern edge of Pinckney's Meadow and located on the path of Rattlesnake Brook before becoming part of Freedomland
  • Benchley Place – named for writer Robert Benchley
  • Broun Place – named for sportswriter Heywood Broun
  • Carver Loop – named for inventor George Washington Carver, it was formerly swampland and a tidal creek, not part of Freedomland
  • Casals Place – named for conductor Pablo Casals, it was formerly swampland and not part of Freedomland
  • Cooper Place – named for author James Fenimore Cooper, it was formerly a navigable tidal creek
  • Darrow Place – named for lawyer Clarence Darrow
  • Debs Place – named for socialist Eugene V. Debs
  • Defoe Place – named for author Daniel Defoe
  • De Kruif Place – named for microbiologist Paul de Kruif
  • Donizetti Place – named for composer Gaetano Donizetti, it was a mill lane for 250 years before Co-op City was built
  • Dreiser Loop – named for journalist Theodore Dreiser, it was part of the parking lot for Freedomland and located on the path of Rattlesnake Brook
  • Earhart Lane – named for aviator Amelia Earhart, it was formerly occupied by barges and frame houses
  • Einstein Loop – named for physicist Albert Einstein, it is the site of Givans and Barrow Creeks, on what was formerly the 14-acre Rose Island
  • Elgar Place – named for composer Edward Elgar, it is the site of Givans Creek
  • Erdman Place – named for poet Loula Grace Erdman, it is the site of Givans Creek
  • Erskine Place – named for educator, author, pianist, and composer John Erskine
Other streets include:
  • Bartow Avenue – named after Reverend John Bartow who served as rector of St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Westchester Square, and whose son later owned land in Pelham Bay Park
  • Baychester Avenue – originally called South 18th Avenue and Comfort Avenue, named after the Baychester real estate venture of the 1890s
  • Hutchinson River Parkway – named for the Hutchinson River, which is named for Anne Hutchinson
  • Hunter Avenue

    History

Previous land use

In the 1920s the land that would become Co-op City had been set aside, intended for a future municipal airport.
The land north of the Hutchinson River Parkway was a large swampy area known by residents as "the dump", and most of the land on the north side of the Hutchinson River was flat land used for recreation.
The land to the south of the Hutchinson River was swampland. A tidal estuary reached from the Hutchinson River at the New Haven Railroad along a route just north of Hunter and Boller Avenue to pass under the Hutchinson River Parkway. The estuary was the site of boat yards and canoe rental sites during the 1950s.
The northern portion of the site became the home of a 205-acre theme park named Freedomland U.S.A. Freedomland operated from June 19, 1960 until September 1964, when it closed after going bankrupt. A small portion of the former park site at the northeast corner of Bartow and Baychester Avenues in Co-op City remains zoned as a C7 district, reserved "for large open amusement parks". The zoning district is a holdover from Freedomland's operation.

Development

In February 1965, plans were announced for the residential Co-op City development, the world's largest housing cooperative, on the site. The plans for Co-op City were announced in May 1965, with no provisions for an amusement park. Construction on Co-op City began in May 1966. While much of the Freedomland site and some of the surrounding land was infilled, several existing houses were retained along Givans Creek because of opposition from residents there. These houses received sewage and other utilities, though these projects were delayed. There was a controversy when Co-op City builders filled the land to grade, because the existing houses were located as much as below grade, and filling for the main development caused storm runoff to flood the existing houses.
Residents began moving in during December 1968, and construction was completed in 1973. The project was sponsored and built by the United Housing Foundation, an organization established in 1951 by Abraham Kazan and the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, and was designed by cooperative architect Herman J. Jessor. The name of the complex's corporation itself was later changed to RiverBay at Co-op City.

Financing

The construction of the community was financed with a mortgage loan from New York State Housing Finance Agency. The complex defaulted on the loan in 1975 and has had ongoing agreements to pay back HFA.
Mismanagement, shoddy construction, and corruption led to the community's defaulting on its loan in 1975. The original Kazan board resigned, and the state took over control. Cooperators, faced with a 25-percent increase in their monthly maintenance fees, organized residents to refuse to pay their monthly maintenance fees. New York State threatened to foreclose on the property and evict the residents, which would mean the loss of their equity. However, cooperators stayed united and held out for 13 months before a compromise was finally reached, with mediation from then-Bronx Borough President Robert Abrams and then-New York Secretary of State Mario Cuomo. Cooperators would remit $20 million in back payments of maintenance fees, but they would get to take over management of the complex and set their own fees.
The shares of stock that prospective purchasers bought to enable them to occupy Co-op City apartments became the subject of protracted litigation, culminating in a United States Supreme Court decision United Housing Foundation, Inc. v. Forman, 421 U.S. 837. 57 residents sued because they had been charged for costs that were not described in a 1965 Information Bulletin seeking to attract residents for apartments in Co-op City. The Supreme Court held that federal courts have no jurisdiction of shares of stock that allow the purchaser to live in an apartment in Co-op City because they are not federally-regulated shares of commercial stock.
In 2004, Co-op City was financially unable to continue payments to HFA due to the huge costs of emergency repairs. New York Community Bank helped RiverBay satisfy its $57 million mortgage obligation, except for $95 million in arrears, by refinancing the loan later that same year. This led to the agreement that Co-op City would remain in the Mitchell-Lama Housing Program for at least seven more years as a concession on the arrears and that any rehabilitation that Co-op City took on to improve the original poor construction would earn credit toward eliminating the debt. By 2008, RiverBay had submitted enough proof of construction repairs to pay off the balance of arrears to New York State.

Renovations

Within the first decade of the 2000s, the aging development began undergoing a complex-wide $240 million renovation, replacing piping and garbage compactors, rehabilitating garages and roofs, upgrading the power plant, making facade and terrace repairs, switching to energy-efficient lighting and water-conserving technologies, replacing all 130,000 windows and 4,000 terrace doors and all 179 elevators. The word "renaissance" is being used to describe this period in Co-op City history. Many of these efforts are also helping in the "greening" of the complex: the power-plant will be less polluting, the buildings will be more efficient and recycling efforts will become more extensive. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority awarded its largest ever grant—$5.2 million—to the community under its NY Energy $mart Assisted Multifamily Program.
In 2003, after a partial collapse in one garage, inspectors found 5 of the 8 garages to be unsafe and ordered them closed for extensive repairs. The other 3 garages were able to remain partially open during repairs. To deal with the parking crisis, New York City allowed angled parking in the community, the large greenways in the complex were paved over to make outdoor parking lots and agreements were made with nearby shopping centers to use their extra parking spaces. All garages were re-opened by January 2008, and work began to restore the greenways that had been paved.
Financial responsibility for these upgrades was the subject of a protracted dispute between RiverBay and the State of New York. Co-op City was developed under New York's Mitchell-Lama Program, which subsidizes affordable housing. RiverBay charged that the state should help with the costs because of severe infrastructure failures stemming from the development's original shoddy construction, which occurred under the supervision of the state. The state countered that RiverBay was responsible for the costs because of its lack of maintenance over the years. In the end, a compromise had the state supplying money and RiverBay refinancing the mortgage, borrowing $480 million from New York Community Bank in 2004, to cover the rest of the capital costs.
In 2007, the power plant was in the process of upgrading from solely managing the electricity brought in from Con Edison to a 40-megawatt tri-generation facility with the ability to use oil, gas or steam to power turbines to produce its own energy. The final cost of this energy independence could be as much as $90 million, but it is hoped to pay for itself with the savings earned—with conservative estimates at $18 million annually—within several years. Also, whatever excess power generated after satisfying the community's needs will be sold back to the electrical grid, adding another source of income for RiverBay.
In September 2007, a report by the New York Inspector General, Kristine Hamann, charged that the Division of Housing and Community Renewal, which is responsible for overseeing Mitchell-Lama developments, was negligent in its duties to supervise the contracting, financial reporting, budgeting and the enforcement of regulations in Co-op City during the period of January 2003 to October 2006. The report also chided Marion Scott management for trying to influence the RiverBay Board by financing election candidates and providing jobs and sports tickets to board members and their family/friends—all violations of DHCR and/or RiverBay regulations. The DHCR was instructed to overhaul its system of oversight to better protect the residents and taxpayer money.
In October 2007, a former board president, Iris Herskowitz Baez, and a former painting contractor, Nickhoulas Vitale, pleaded guilty to involvement in a kickback scheme. While on the RiverBay Board, Baez steered $3.5 million in subsidized painting contracts for needed work in Co-op City apartments, to Vitale's company, Stadium Interior Painting, in exchange for $100,000 in taxpayer money. Herskowitz Baez was sentenced to 6 months in jail and 12 months' probation and given a $10,000 fine in March 2008.