Saving America's Cities

by Lizabeth Cohen

  147. Campbell, New Towns: Another Way to Live, 209.

  148. Logue, interview, Steen, August 3, 1988, Boston, MA; NYT, July 10, 1973, quoted in Steen, “Edward J. Logue … and New York City,” 9; NYSUDC Annual Report 1973, 9. Many years later, Richard Kahan would claim that Logue’s affirmative-action record at the UDC “set a standard for a long period of time”; introduction by Kahan, Municipal Art Society Panel on Logue and Roosevelt Island, March 7, 2001, transcript, 1.

  149. Logue, interview, Steen, January 16, 1991, Boston, MA, 34.

  150. “Statement by Edward J. Logue, President and Chief Executive Officer,” Roosevelt Island Housing Competition, New York State Urban Development Corporation, 1974, 3.

  151. “Appraisal, by Werner Seligmann,” in “Assessing Broadway East,” PA 55, no. 10 (October 1974): 62. On Seligmann’s Elm Street Housing, see Charles Moore, “After a New Architecture: The Best Shape for a Chimera,” Oppositions 3 (May 1974); “Scattered Site Hill Town,” PA 54, no. 5 (May 1973): 64–71.

  152. Logue, interview, Steen, January 6, 1991, Boston, MA, 35–36; Peter Eisenman, conversation with Lizabeth Cohen, January 23, 2009, New Haven, CT.

  153. Huxtable, “Quality Design with Amenities.”

  154. Chloethiel Woodard Smith was based in Washington, DC, not Boston, but Logue called on her frequently.

  155. Michael McKinnell, interview by Lizabeth Cohen, June 15, 2010, Cambridge, MA; Ieoh Ming Pei, interview by Lizabeth Cohen, June 11, 2007, New York, NY; Henry N. Cobb, interview by Lizabeth Cohen, June 8, 2010, New York, NY. John Johansen concurred that Logue picked architects whose work he knew and liked and deliberately avoided others; Johansen, interview by Lizabeth Cohen, November 13, 2010, Wellfleet, MA.

  156. “Design: UDC’s Emphasis on Design Quality and Livability,” Panel No. 2, “Policy and Design for Housing” conference, CUNY Graduate Center, June 11, 2005, transcript, 21.

  157. Pangaro, interview.

  158. Robert Litke, interview by Lizabeth Cohen, May 25, 2006, Somerset, NJ; Johansen, interview; also see Logue, interview, Steen, January 6, 1991, Boston, MA, 37, where Logue called Johansen “a bit of a disappointment.”

  159. Huson Jackson to Josep Lluís Sert, July 10, 1970, Sert, Folder E15, “Correspondence, 1970.”

  160. James Stewart Polshek, Memo to Edward Logue, November 11, 1971, and Edward Logue, Memo to James Stewart Polshek, November 12, 1971, EJL, Box 291, Folder “Twin Parks, 1971,” in Freemark, “Entrepreneurial State,” 135–36. Also see Kahan, interview, for another UDC complaint about the Twin Parks windows.

  161. Charles Hoyt, “What Did the New Super-Agency Mean for the Architect,” AR 158, no. 6 (Mid-October 1975): 107; also “Economic/Political Systems,” AR 149, no. 4 (April 1971): 129–31.

  162. Many architects expressed gratitude to the UDC for work but also for backing when conflicts arose with contractors: Andy Leon Harney, “The New York UDC as Client: A Record of Accomplishment,” AIA Journal 63, no. 2 (February 1975): 33; Joseph Wasserman to Edward Logue, July 19, 1974, and Edward Logue to Herbert A. Tessler, July 22, 1973, EJL, Box 290, Folder “Coney Island, 1971–1973,” in Freemark, “Entrepreneurial State,” 136.

  163. Pangaro, interview.

  164. Freemark, “Entrepreneurial State,” 137.

  165. Theodore Liebman and Alan Melting, “Learning from Experience: The Evolution of Housing Criteria,” PA 55, no. 11 (November 1974): 72.

  166. On skip-stop, see Stern et al., New York 1960, 652; “Part I: Projects, B. Roosevelt Island, Uniqueness of the Client,” Sert, Folder B87C.

  167. Franklin D. Becker, “Design for Living: The Residents’ View of Multi-Family Housing; Final Report to the New York State Urban Development Corporation,” Center for Urban Development Research, Cornell University, May 1974; NYSUDC Annual Report 1972, 57–58; NYSUDC Annual Report 1973, 39–43; NYSUDC Annual Report 1974, 31; Harney, “New York UDC as Client,” 33.

  168. Liebman, interview by Cohen; Pangaro, interview.

  169. Liebman, interview by Cohen; Logue, interview, Jones, Tape 3:40–41; MLogue, interview; Freemark, “Entrepreneurial State,” 140.

  170. Barry Bergdoll and Peter Christensen, Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2008); Loren Berlin, “From Stigma to Housing Fix: The Evolution of Manufactured Homes,” Land Lines 30, no. 1 (January 2018): 4–13; Peter Wolf, The Evolving City: Urban Design Proposals by Ulrich Franzen and Paul Rudolph (New York: Whitney Library of Design for the American Federation of Arts, 1974), 57–58 on Rudolph’s assessment of modules; Thomas Fetters, The Lustron Home: The History of a Postwar Prefabricated Housing Experiment (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2002).

  171. Tom Long, “Carl Koch, 86; Noted Architect,” BG, July 10, 1998; Jennifer Hock, “Bulldozers, Busing, and Boycotts: Urban Renewal and the Integrationist Project,” JUH 39, no. 3 (May 2013): 443.

  172. Brilliant, Urban Development Corporation, 31; “State to Review Building Methods,” NYT, December 7, 1969; Logue, interview, Jones, Tape 4:38. On Operation Breakthrough, see Kristin M. Szylvian, “Operation Breakthrough: Manufactured Housing for the City?,” paper delivered to the Urban History Association, October 16, 2016; “Operation Breakthrough: Lessons Learned About Demonstrating New Technology,” Report to the Congress by the Comptroller General of the United States, November 2, 1976, http://www.gao.gov/products/PSAD-76-173. The National Commission on Urban Problems also recommended prefabrication as a way to improve the quality of urban and suburban housing; Building the American City, 431–50, photo insert, 9.

  173. Fischer, “Easy Chair: Notes from the Underground,” 18–20.

  174. On technical innovations: Logue, “The Education of an Urban Administrator,” The Universitas Project: Solutions for a Post-Technological Society, conceived and directed by Emilio Ambasz, from Symposium January 8–9, 1972 (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2006), 181; Logue, “New York State Proves the Value of Urban Development Corporation,” The Housing Yearbook, 1971, 18, National Housing Conference, 45; NYSUDC Annual Report 1969, 49, 53; NYSUDC Annual Report 1971, 70–71; NYSUDC Annual Report 1972, 74–75; “Housing: One Government Agency Reaches for Good Architecture,” AR 152, no. 3 (September 1972): 151, 159; Ursula Cliff, “UDC Scorecard,” Design and Environment 3, no. 2 (Summer 1972): 62; “Design Alternatives for Low-to Moderate-Income Urban Housing,” AR 160, no. 2 (August 1976): 106; Loewenstein, Private Benefits, Public Costs, 32.

  175. “Statement of the Architect,” c. 1976, JJ, Box 12, Folder 7. Johansen discussed the material and its installation in Johansen, interview, 36–38.

  176. “Did the UDC Advance Technology?”; “What Did the New Super-Agency Mean for the Architect?,” AR 158, no. 6 (Mid-October 1975): 108, 110; Logue, “Goals, Policies, Prospects of the New York State Urban Development Corporation,” 11; Logue, interview, Steen, August 3, 1988, Boston, MA, 4.

  177. Edward Logue to Paul Rudolph, October 21, 1971, EJL, Box 300, Folder 597; Suzanne Stephens, “Standing by the Twentieth-Century Brick,” PA 55, no. 10 (October 1974): 81.

  178. Another Chance for Housing: Low-Rise Alternatives; An Exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, June 12–August 19, 1973, designed by the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies for the New York State Urban Development Corporation. On Marcus Garvey Park Village more generally, see Pangaro, interview; Liebman, interview by Cohen; NYSUDC Annual Report 1973, 44–45; “Low-Rise, High-Density: UDC/IAUS Publicly Assisted Housing,” PA 54, no. 12 (December 1973): 56–63; “What Did the New Super-Agency Mean for the Architect?,” AR 158, no. 6 (Mid-October 1975): 109; “Ken Frampton and Friends on Ed Logue,” Oculus 63, no. 2 (October 2000): 14–15; Kim Förster, “The Housing Prototype of the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies,” Candide: Journal for Architectural Knowledge, no. 5 (February 2012): 57–92; Kenneth Frampton, interview by Karen Kubey, October 31, 2008, New York, NY, COH; Karen Kubey, “Marcus Garvey Village,” in Affordable Housing in New York, 231–34; “Design: UDC’s Emphasis on Design Quality and Livability,�
� Panel No. 2, “Policy and Design for Housing” conference, CUNY Graduate Center, June 11, 2005, 27–30; Ada Louise Huxtable, “Another Chance for Housing,” NYT, June 24, 1973.

  179. “Politics: The Role of Developing UDC Projects,” Panel No. 3, “Policy and Design for Housing” conference, CUNY Graduate Center, June 11, 2005, 5. Also see Karen Kubey, “Low-Rise, High-Density Housing: A Contemporary View of Marcus Garvey Village,” Urban Omnibus, July 18, 2012, http://urbanomnibus.net/2012/07/low-rise-high-density-housing-a-contemporary-view-of-marcus-garvey-park-village/; Susan Saegert and Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani, “Making Housing Home,” Places 19, no. 2 (2007): 72–79; Anna E. J. Fogel, “Marcus Garvey Village: Towards a New Housing Prototype” (senior thesis, Harvard University, 2007); Gina Bellafonte, “A Housing Solution Gone Awry,” NYT, June 1, 2013.

  180. “Statement by Edward J. Logue, President and Chief Executive Officer,” Roosevelt Island Housing Competition, 3; also see The Roosevelt Island Housing Competition, catalog for exhibition at the McGraw-Hill Building, October 15–November 4, 1975, ed. Deborah Nevins (New York: Architectural League of New York, 1975); Paul Goldberger, “U.D.C.’s Architecture Has Raised Public Standard,” NYT, March 3, 1975; Stern et al., New York 1960, 655–56.

  181. The winners were Stern & Hagmann of New York; Kyu Sung Woo of New York; Sam Davis and the ELS Design Group of Berkeley, California; and Robert L. Amico and Robert Brandon of Champaign, Illinois; Stern et al., New York 1960, 656. Also see Suzanne Stephens, “Roosevelt Island Housing Competition: This Side of Habitat,” reprint from PA 56, no. 7 (July 1975): 58–59; “Roosevelt Island Competition—Was It Really a Flop?,” AR 158, no. 6 (Mid-October 1975): 111–20; Hélène Lipstadt, “Transforming the Tradition: American Architectural Competitions, 1960 to the Present,” in The Experimental Tradition: Essays on Competitions in Architecture, ed. Lipstadt (New York: Architectural League of New York, 1989), 102–105.

  182. Liebman, interview by Cohen.

  183. Pangaro, “Design: UDC’s Emphasis on Design Quality and Livability,” Panel No. 2, “Policy and Design for Housing” conference, CUNY Graduate Center, June 11, 2005, 15, 29.

  184. Goldberger, “U.D.C.’s Architecture Has Raised Public Standard.”

  185. Logue, “Goals, Policies, Prospects of the New York State Urban Development Corporation,” 9.

  186. Nathan Laliberte, “The History of the Rockefeller Family in Westchester,” Westchester Magazine, October 2012.

  8. From Fair Share to Belly-Up

      1. Logue, Address in “NAHRO’s 1968 Workshops in Community Development,” JH 25, no. 9 (October 1968): 461–62.

      2. Logue, “National Policies and Priorities,” Crisis in the City: Edward J. Logue Lectures at Boston University 1968 (Boston: Urban Institute, Boston University, 1968), 19.

      3. Logue, “Fair Sharing—or Why Don’t We Do Something About It,” Commencement Address, Smith College, Northampton, MA, June 2, 1968, FH, M16, Box 56, Folder 2273, 7–8; Logue, “Only White Society Can Solve Black Problems,” Phi Beta Kappa Oration, Harvard Alumni Bulletin 70, no. 17 (July 1, 1968); Logue, “Commencement Address—Marlboro College, Marlboro, VT, June 15, 1969.

      4. David K. Shipler, “Suburban Zoning Laws: New Frontier in Civil Rights Drive,” CT, August 23, 1970; Wendell Pritchett, “Which Urban Crisis? Regionalism, Race, and Urban Policy, 1960–1974,” JUH 34, no. 2 (January 2008): 278–79; Richard Rothstein and Mark Santow, “The Cost of Living Apart,” American Prospect, August 22, 2012; “America’s Federally Financed Ghettos,” editorial, NYT, April 7, 2018.

      5. “Housing: How Ed Logue Does It,” Newsweek, November 6, 1972.

      6. Sydney H. Schanberg, “New York Urban Aid: A New Man May Stir Things Up,” NYT, May 5, 1968; Sydney H. Schanberg, “State’s Urban Agency to Be Led by Logue, Who Spurned City Job,” NYT, April 27, 1968.

      7. Logue quoted in “A Superagency for Urban Superproblems,” BW, March 7, 1970, 98.

      8. Logue, “Piecing the Political Pie,” Saturday Review, May 15, 1971, 29.

      9. Eleanor L. Brilliant, The Urban Development Corporation: Private Interests and Public Authority (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, D. C. Heath, 1975), 4nb; Logue, “Goals, Policies, Prospects of the New York State Urban Development Corporation,” July 1972, 7; Louis K. Loewenstein, The New York State Urban Development Corporation: Private Benefits, Public Costs, an Evaluation of a Noble Experiment (Washington, DC: Council of State Planning Agencies, 1980), 27; Frank S. Kristof, “Housing,” in the Academy of Political Science, Governing New York State: The Rockefeller Years 31, no. 3 (May 1974): 199 on the consent of local communities to overrides.

    10. NYSUDC Annual Report 1972, 48.

    11. Brilliant, Urban Development Corporation, 57–64; Logue, interview, Steen, March 3, 1986, Lincoln, MA, 18, where Logue explained how subsidiaries created “community partners” and helped avoid the charge that “you’ve given the store away.”

    12. Logue, “Can the State Help Save the Suburbs?,” Social Action 36, no. 8 (1969): 25–31, in Jay Curtis Getz, “The Progressive Technician and Mr. Urban Renewal: Lawrence Veiller, Edward Logue, and the Evolution of Planning for Low-Income Housing” (M.A. thesis, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 1990), 111.

    13. Robert Litke, interview by Lizabeth Cohen, May 25, 2006, Somerset, NJ.

    14. On Westchester, Sharon Zukin, “The Mill and the Mall: Power and Homogeneity in Westchester County,” Landscapes of Power: From Detroit to Disney World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 135–77.

    15. Logue, interview, August 4, 1983, 211, in Rockefeller in Retrospect: The Governor’s New York Legacy, ed. Gerald Benjamin and T. Norman Hurd (Albany, NY: Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, 1984), 210–11; Logue, interview, Jones, Tape 3:34.

    16. My description of the UDC’s Fair Share Housing or Nine Towns program in Westchester is based on Brilliant, Urban Development Corporation, 90–99, 132–46, 166; NYSUDC Annual Report 1972, 10–11, 53–55; Loewenstein, Private Benefits, Public Costs, 55–58; Martin F. Nolan, “The City Politic: Showdown Vote in Northern Westchester,” New York, June 4, 1973; Stephen Lefkowitz, interview by Lizabeth Cohen, June 14, 2007, New York, NY; Yonah Freemark, “The Entrepreneurial State: New York’s Urban Development Corporation, an Experiment to Take Charge of Affordable Housing Production” (Ph.D. dissertation, MIT, 2013), 200–213; and many NYT articles, particularly by Linda Greenhouse: “Low-Income State Housing Due in Rural Westchester,” June 21, 1972; “Suburbs Fighting State Agency’s Plan to Override Local Zoning,” July 17, 1972; “Westchester Towns Win a Moratorium on U.D.C. Housing,” August 2, 1972; “Housing Delayed in Westchester,” September 26, 1972; “State Low-Income Housing Plan Is at a Standstill in Westchester,” November 6, 1972; “State to Push Housing in Westchester,” January 17, 1973. Also editorials: “Westchester’s Test,” August 31, 1973; “For a New Westchester,” January 26, 1973.

    17. Logue, “Remarks at the Bards Award Luncheon,” City Club of New York, Roosevelt Hotel, May 23, 1969; and Logue, “The Urban Development Corporation in Westchester County,” Address Before the Joint Dinner Meeting of the Westchester Council of Social Agencies and the Westchester Municipal Planning Federation, June 18, 1969, PD, Box 11, 11–12.

    18. “Bishop Urges UDC Support Even in Conflict with Church Members,” Harrison Independent, July 26, 1972.

    19. Donald Marshal, “Bedford Historic District First in Westchester,” PT, August 31, 1972; Bedford Historic District, pamphlet, 4; Bedford Town Board Meeting Minutes, August 15, 1972, 286–87.

    20. To follow the bitter battles in Westchester towns, see many articles in these local newspapers: Patent Trader, Harrison Independent, The Yorktowner, and Scarsdale Inquirer.

    21. Linda Greenhouse, interview by Lizabeth Cohen, August 2, 2018, Boston, MA.

    22. NYSUDC Annual Report 1972, 11.
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    23. Lawrence Goldman, interview by Lizabeth Cohen, May 3, 2010, Newark, NJ; Richard Kahan, interview by Lizabeth Cohen, June 15, 2007, New York, NY. Ted Liebman remembered that at one point Logue needed a bodyguard to go to a Bedford meeting; Ted Liebman, interview by Lizabeth Cohen, October 15, 2006, New York, NY.

    24. Elizabeth Simonoff, “UDC Told to ‘Get Out’ of Bedford,” PT, August 19, 1972.

    25. Linda Greenhouse, “Housing Debated in Westchester,” NYT, September 10, 1972.

    26. “Building Burns at UDC Site,” PT, October 12, 1972.

    27. Stephen Lefkowitz to Logue, December 15, 1971, EJL, Box 271, Folder “Correspondence: Nelson A. Rockefeller (1971 July–December),” in Freemark, “Entrepreneurial State,” 189.

    28. Logue, interview, Steen, March 3, 1986, Lincoln, MA, 8; Logue, interview, Steen, December 2, 1988, Lincoln, MA, 29; Sydney H. Schanberg, “Clark Named to State Urban Board,” NYT, August 3, 1968; Daniel Matlin, On the Corner: African American Intellectuals and the Urban Crisis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 36–122. Ironically, Clark and his wife lived in the predominantly white suburban town of Hastings-on-Hudson in Westchester.