Built in the 1920s, Sunnyside Gardens, Queens, New York, was a model modern community meant to exemplify best practices in land development, home design, and housing finance. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, many homeowners who had been drawn to the attractive neighborhood faced losing their homes to mortgage foreclosure. Rather than go quietly, they formed a committee, gathered economic survey data, and lobbied federal and state officials, ultimately affecting New Deal legislation. When their lobbying yielded little increased security, they adopted the methods of their rent striking forebears in Manhattan tenements, declared solidarity, and struck for lower mortgage payments. Although hundreds ultimately lost their homes, their example stands as a reminder of the promise of democratic participation in times of crisis.
Clarence S. Stein, Toward New Towns for America (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1957).
2.
City Housing Corporation.Tenth Annual Report . May 2, 1934.
3.
USDC SDNY Bankruptcy Case Files-1898 Act Case 60286 (RG 21) Box 590 Steno Minutes 4/15/35, 53.
4.
Stein 1957, 34, 31.
5.
Tom Robbins .The Democratic Vision of Sunnyside Gardens. City Limits. March 1985, 17; ‘‘Other Boroughs Lose to Queens,’’New York Times, May 8, 1927: RE2.
6.
Economic Survey of Home Owners in Sunnyside Gardens, Long Island City, New York, March 1933 .
7.
Stein 1957, 35.
8.
Roy Lubove.Community Planning in the 1920s (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh Press, 1962), 1.
9.
Lubove, 59. See also Carl Sussman, ed., Planning the Fourth Migration (Cambridge: MIT, 1976); also Daniel Schaffer, Garden Cities for America (Philadelphia: Temple Press, 1982); Gail Radford, Modern Housing for America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996); Edward Spann, Designing Modern America (Columbus: Ohio State, 1997).
10.
Lawrence M. Friedman, Government and Slum Housing (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1968), 77-8.
11.
Lubove, 58.
12.
Miles L.Colean, AmericanHousing: Problems and Prospects (New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1944), 274.
13.
Anthony Jackson, A Place Called Home (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1976), 187.
14.
Colean, 242.
15.
Stuart Chase , The Case Against Home Ownership. Survey Graphic. May 1938, 27, no. 3, 261-7, 262.
16.
Colean, 248.
17.
Colean, 247.
18.
‘‘Equitable Loans Placed,’’New York Times, December 19, 1926, RE2.
19.
Richard T. Ely , ‘‘The City Housing Corporation and ‘‘Sunnyside,’’’’Journal of Land & Public Utility Economics2, no. 2 (1926): 172-85, 172-3.
20.
Ely, 180.
21.
Loula D. Lasker, ‘‘Sunnyside Up and Down,’’Survey Graphic25 ( 1936): 419-41, 420.
22.
D.L. Wickens , Residential Real Estate ( New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1941), Table D10, 216-7. Cited in Colean, 226.
23.
Economic Survey of Home Owners in Sunnyside Gardens, Long Island City, New York, March 1933, 2.
24.
New York Times. A. Anton Friedrich, Ex-N.Y.U. Professor. May 20, 1961, 23.
25.
New York Times. T. G. Herendeen, Expert on Realty; A.T. & T. Aide Dies at 59-Studies Pointed Up a Need for Housing Legislation, August 8, 1957, 18.
26.
Economic Survey of Home Owners in Sunnyside Gardens, Long Island City, New York, March 1933, 2.
27.
Ibid, summary page.
28.
C. Lowell Harriss , History and Policies of the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1951), 10n6.
29.
‘‘‘Mortgage Marchers’ Told at White House President Plans to Save Homes,’’New York Times, May 13, 1933, 1.
30.
Mary Lee Eller , Interview with the author, December 6, 2006.
31.
Mary E. McEntee to Robert F. Wagner, May 15, 1933. Box 217, folder 1250. Senator Robert F. Wagner Papers, Georgetown University, Washington, DC.
32.
‘‘‘Mortgage Marchers’ Told at White House President Plans to Save Homes,’’New York Times, May 13, 1933, 1.
33.
Harriss, 2.
34.
Harriss, 1.
35.
‘‘Mortgage ‘Strike’ Answered by Suits,’’New York Times, April 11, 1935, 21.
36.
‘‘Meets Sunnyside Group: Fahey Refers ‘Mortgage Strikers’ to State HOLC Officials,’’New York Times, March 31, 1935, 35.
37.
Amy E. Hillier, ‘‘Redlining and the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation,’’Journal of Urban History29, no. 4 (May 2003): 394-420.
38.
Records Relating to the City Survey File, 1935-1940, New York, Queens. Records of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board. Record Group 195, Box 76, National Archives II, College Park, MD.
39.
‘‘Van Schaick Denies Foreclosure Edict: Says Title Companies Cannot Blame State for Forced Sales of Homes. La Guardia Heads Group: New Committee Seeks a Special Session of Legislature to Aid Home Owners,’’New York Times, June 23, 1933, 5.
40.
‘‘Lehman Appoints a Mortgage Board: L. R. Eastman Heads Committee of Advisers, Preparatory to Federal Relief. See Foreclosure Menace: Home Owners Group Asserts that Special Legislative Session is Necessary,’’New York Times, July 12, 1933, 2.
41.
Ibid.
42.
‘‘Foreclosure Holiday Urged Upon Eastman,’’New York Times, July 14, 1933, 9.
43.
Thomas Kessner, Fiorello H.La Guardia and the Making of Modern New York (New York : Penguin Books, 1989), 182.
44.
Ibid, 183.
45.
‘‘8,000 Home Owners to Call on Lehman: Queens Residents Plan Trip to Albany to Ask Governor for Mortgage Relief. Special Session is Urged: La Guardia, Hylan and Others, at Rally, Advise Drive on Federal Law Also,’’New York Times, June 28, 1933, 23.
46.
‘‘Asks Aid to Home Owners: La Guardia Urges Legislation at Special Session,’’New York Times, July 17, 1933, 2
47.
‘‘Offer Bill to Delay Home Foreclosures,’’New York Times, July 24, 1933, 17.
48.
‘‘House Group Seeks Aid on Mortgages: La Guardia Presents Bill to Delay Foreclosures Before Governor’s Advisory Body,’’New York Times, July 18, 1933, 12.
49.
‘‘Mortgage Relief Urged on Lehman,’’New York Times, August 2, 1933, p. 3.
50.
‘‘Ask Broader Bills for Mortgage Aid,’’New York Times, August 10, 1933, 18.
51.
Kessner, 259.
52.
‘‘Matthew Napear, La Guardia Aide; Insurance Broker, 72, Dies-A Department Secretary,’’New York Times , April 16, 1968, 47.
53.
T.G. Herendeen , ‘‘Expert on Realty; A.T. & T. Aide Dies at 59-Studies Pointed Up a Need for Housing Legislation,’’New York Times, August 8, 1957, 18.
54.
City Housing Corporation, Tenth Annual Report, May 2, 1934.
55.
Jenna Weissman Joselit, ‘‘The Landlord as Czar: Pre-World War I Tenant Activity,’’ in The Tenant Movement in New York City, 1904-1984, ed., Ronald Lawson and Mark Naison, 39-50 (New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1984), 39.
56.
Ibid, 45.
57.
Mark Naison, ‘‘From Eviction Resistance to Rent Control: Tenant Activism in the Great Depression,’’ in The Tenant Movement in New York City, 1904-1984, ed., Ronald Lawson and Mark Naison, 94-133 (New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1984), 94.
58.
‘‘Seeks Mortgage Change,’’New York Times, February 28, 1933, C36.
59.
‘‘Mortgage Strike is Voted in Queens,’’New York Times, March 25, 1935, 3.
60.
A. Anton Friedrich and Thomas G. Herendeen, Valuation Brief With Reference to Mortgage Payments, Sunnyside Gardens , Long Island City, NY, April 1935 .
61.
‘‘Mortgage ‘Strike’ Answered by Suits,’’New York Times, April 11, 1935, 21.
62.
‘‘Mortgage Fight Pushed,’’New York Times, April 12, 1935, 13.
63.
Communist Party to Sunnyside Homeowners, June 8, 1935. Folder 97. Box 10. Housing Interests Series. Record Group III 2 J. Office of the Messrs. Rockefeller. Rockefeller Family Archives. Rockefeller Archives Center.
64.
Russell Sage Foundation Papers. Box 7 Folder 61. Rockefeller Archives Center. Sleepy Hollow, NY.
65.
‘‘Picket Insurance Office,’’New York Times, November 10, 1935, 42.
66.
‘‘Sunnyside Residents Sing and Dance with Brooms to Protest Foreclosures,’’New York Times, December 20, 1935, 28.
67.
‘‘Sunnyside Eviction Halted as Police, Helpless, Look On,’’Daily Worker, December 31, 1935, 1.
68.
‘‘Give Housing Course: Summer Session Will be Conducted by Columbia University,’’New York Times , April 26, 1936.
69.
‘‘Paul P. Crosbie, 68, Communist Leader: State Treasurer of the Party, F. D. Roosevelt Classmate, Dies - Former Democrat,’’New York Times, August 2, 1949,19.
70.
‘‘34 in Jersey Sit-In Are Taught Here: Private School Plays Host to Englewood Negroes,’’New York Times , June 2, 1963, 71.
71.
‘‘Mrs. Thal Saved and Scraped to Build a Dream Home .... And Rockfeller Foreclosed the Mortgage,’’Sunday Worker, February 2, 1936.
72.
‘‘Notables ‘Invited’ to Queens Eviction,’’New York Times, February 10, 1936, 19.
73.
United Press , ‘‘Flour Bombs Greet Marshal At Eviction of Family in N.Y.,’’Washington Post, July 28, 1936, X4.
74.
‘‘Sunnyside Families Picket the Equitable,’’New York Times, July 31, 1936, 10.
75.
‘‘City Official Holds ‘Wake’ For Home in Sunnyside,’’New York Times, August 10, 1936, 32.
76.
‘‘1,000 at Funeral of Sunnyside Home,’’New York Times, August 11, 1926, 17.
77.
‘‘Mortgage Strike Leader Evicted in Sunnyside,’’New York Herald Tribune, August 11, 1936.
78.
‘‘Sunnyside Owners Get 40% Cut Offer,’’New York Times, May 1, 1936, 7.
79.
Lasker, 440.
80.
The Sunnyside Gardener, Sunnyside Gardens, NY. Lewis and Sophie Mumford on Sunnyside. Vol. III No. 1 Winter/Spring 1984: 10.
81.
Clarence S. Stein.Kermit C. Parsons, ed. The Writings of Clarence S. Stein (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 443.
82.
‘‘Tenement Repairs by City Debated; Mayor’s Plan for a $500,000 Revolving Fund Assailed and Defended Before Board; Owners Object to Cost; Rehabilitation Would Be a Prior Lien-Some Hold the Amount Is Too Small,’’New York Times, June 9, 1937, 49.
83.
Richard D. Lyons, ‘‘Meyer Parodneck, 89, Advocate for the Poor of New York, Dies,’’New York Times , May 22, 1994, 38.
84.
Clarence Stein , Organization of the Community CSS September 3, 1947. Clarence S. Stein Papers Box 1 Folder 9. Carl A. Kroch Library. Rare and Manuscript Collection. Cornell University. Ithaca, NY, 5.
