By Lou Powsner
Editor’s Note: This column was originally printed in the Brooklyn Graphic on February 17, 1988. As Coney gears up for a hotly debated, radical makeover, Speak Out’s Lou Powsner reminds us of earlier proposals for urban renewal in the storied, but blighted, area.We wrote a series of columns on this page, fifteen years ago, that renounced the plans of our City’s HRB (Housing Redevelopment Board). When they first started to operate upon Coney Island, back in 1963 they had different initials. HAD, Housing Development Administration. After each unsuccessful surgery, they change the initials before the next incisions. Early this year they came back under a new name, Housing Preservation Department (HPD.) The names are different, but their new plans stir old memories, and incite new doubts and fears.In 1973 we defiantly wrote of their pie-in-sky plans then. We called them, “the Fruit of the Poisoned Tree.” They were not unpopular in our community. The theme of their plans was that they were going to bring new shopping to the tired community that had been drained by long delayed urban renewal. People in the surroundings pointed accusatory fingers at the stories then. They did not like the ugly, accordioned gates. They thought the boarded up windows were ugly. They had no compassion for the store owners who were victims of raging crime, as neighboring buildings burned or were picked apart by burglars or vandals…or both!The elderly cried out at public meetings. “We want new stores! Bring us a Waldbaum’s!” The City’s promises showed us maps, and pointed. “Here on the western side, we’ll tear down three blocks of stores. We’ll build a new western shopping node!” Cheers went up. It would help Sea Gates residents and also the new people coming into the new high-risers on western Coney Island. The planned resumed with his ruler, “…and here we will build a new eastern shopping node, three blocks of stores from West 21 to West 24 Street…” More cheers came up from all…all except the storeowners, and their Board of Trade.How unpopular we were at those meetings when we questioned, “What will the city do with the merchants who are on-site? Where can they go?” Other merchants asked, “If we get out of here, where will you get new storeowners daring enough to come in here?” The City had answers. They promised everything to everybody. “The landlords would get a fair price for their properties. The store owners would be paid for relocation. If they wanted to move their wares or stock to another street, the City would reimburse them. If they want to come back after we build new stores, we will give them a priority…”In reality, the store-owner would be enabled to go home to his wife and tell her, “The City wants to tear down the store that we now pay $200 a month for. If we wait two years, they’ll build us a new one and rent it to us for $800 a month…” The guy never finished when the wife warned him, “Take the money and run.” Some left quickly. Other stuck it out till the end.Stormy community meetings ensued. All of the politicians favored the plan. Local slumlords threatened to sue us for columns where we described certain landlords, who sat at meetings with their deeds in their pockets like bingo cards, eyes lighting up when their street addresses were called in the new ten block plans. The one that hollered the loudest to us must have collected more than a million for his dime-store properties that the City paid him fortunes for. He went big-time after Coney Island, and two years ago he was convicted for shafting tenants into profitable evictions uptown in Manhattan.The HAD, HRB (now HPD) built absolutely nothing in Coney Island. Some of the buildings they took over burned down. Others they tore down. Heavy rains ruined other buildings. Crime tore apart others. In every instance the storekeepers had to leave because the City never made repairs. Six of those blocks that they took over became a shambles. Tall woods of weeds now harbor broken bottles, automobile carcasses and dumpings attracted from trucks that found the cavities.This today is the fruit of the poisoned tree that was planted on main street Mermaid Avenue in 1973 and 1974 with hard-gained tax monies. Oh, we argued hard and long through the years with the same politicos who approved the plans. In the early days they blamed President Richard Nixon. “If we’d have elected a Democrat we wouldn’t have done this. But you can’t get any money out of Tricky Dick…” They never blamed Mayor Abe Beame or any of the locals and lean years befell the most neglected water-fronting property on the Atlantic Coast.In recent years the City does deserve some credit for helping to build newer houses, private homes that attracted brave new homeowners who also need places to shop. But anytime the City was ready to release empty real estate for auction, the Community Board mysteriously withdrew them from sale. Private buyers wanted a crack at coming in, but it was forbidden fruit, really poisoned by ill begotten plans. Until early this year when the HPD came into Coney Island again, this time they came with the PDC (Public Dev’t Corp.) Now they have chosen many blocks closer to Sea Gates for immediate redevelopment.On the surface it is hard to turn down any sort of plan for a community that has been so best for so long. But when Government takes everything in sight, without recognition of the unjust injuries they might inject, then a segment of the community becomes aroused again. Next week we will return for Par II of “The Seeds of the Poisoned Fruit.” Until then be well!
