SLUM CLEARANCE IN NEW YORK

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27090, 13 July 1953, Page 13

SLUM CLEARANCE IN NEW YORK

City Authorities Criticised

“ MAY BE GHOST TOWN IN 15 YEARS” (From a Reuter Correspondent.)

NEW YORK. An expert on slum rehabilitation has warned the New York authorities that their present “blind” approach to slum clearance will bankrupt the city and turn it into a ghost town within 15 years.

Mr G. Yates Cook, author of the ‘‘Baltimore Plan’’ of slum clearance and director of the National Association of Home Builders’ Department of Urban Rehabilitation, told a news conference that the New York slum problem was being “grossly mishandled” by city and state authorities. “Many blighted areas of New York can be salvaged at the expense of the slum landlords whose neglect and indifference are largely responsible for today’s slum crisis,’’ he said. “But these planners want to tear down structurally sound apartment buildings, rebuild from the ground up, and pass the bill on to the taxpayers. They are trying to bail out the slum landlords at the expense of the already overburdened New York taxpayer.’’ Mr Cook said that a thorough investigation of slum ownership in New York City would uncover conditions “far worse than anything disclosed to the public in the recent waterfront scandals.’’

“If this city’s vast housing inventory is permitted to rot away at the present rate, as it must without a complete reversal of officail thinking, New York will be a ghost town within 15 years,” he said. “The middle-class families that are the life blood of any city already are migrating in great numbers to the outer suburbs of New York. Business and industry inevitably will follow, leaving blighted, impoverished properties to shoulder the city tax burden.’’ Mr Cook said that city and state officials had “brushed off” without a trial the Baltimore Slum Clearance Plan, which had been demonstarted successfully in cities all over the country. Under the Baltitmore Plan, strict enforcement of city buildings, health, fire safety and sanitation laws compels slum landlords to restore their properties to decent, livable condition—at their own expense. Teams of city investigators, operating under a separate municipal department, inspect slum districts for violations, on an area-by-area basis. Landlords who refuse to comply are prosecuted in a special housing court created to deal with such cases,