Cooper Square CLT

The Cooper Square Community Land Trust Oral History Project documents and honors the struggles, experiences, and memories of the individuals—residents, organizers, activists, and devoted advocates—who have stewarded the land of the Cooper Square Community Land Trust (CLT) since its inception in Manhattan's Lower East Side. This transgenerational project aims to reveal lessons from past battles, victories, and setbacks while acknowledging the dedication, love, and care bestowed upon this land by those who paved the way. Conceived as an organizing and educational tool, it empowers future generations to engage in shaping the future of the Cooper Square community.

Born out of the struggles against Robert Moses and his controversial urban renewal plans during the 1950s and 1960s, the Cooper Square CLT was officially established in 1993. Since then, it has protected the principle of community control and shared ownership. For the past three decades, the Cooper Square CLT has owned and stewarded the land beneath the 21 buildings comprising the Cooper Square Mutual Housing Association II. More recently, it has extended its custodianship to include the land of Two Buildings Tenants United HDFC, located in the same neighborhood.

This oral history project serves as a unifying endeavor, bringing together a diverse community of organizers, activists, and visionaries who have helped the Cooper Square community thrive in a context of disinvestment and, most recently, gentrification. In an ever-changing context, their narratives prove that alternative models of housing development and management are not only viable but vital to preserving low-income, working-class, and immigrant communities. By documenting the contributions of the Cooper Square CLT, this project illuminates its profound impact on the activism in the Lower East Side and New York City's housing movement.

Being the oldest community land trust in New York City still in operation, Cooper Square CLT has become a beacon for community control over land and housing, inspiring traditionally excluded and disenfranchised communities across neighborhoods in the city, particularly over the last two decades. During this period, the community land trust movement kicked off and expanded as profit-driven development, gentrification, and displacement took over post-industrial and disinvested areas that were home to low-income, working-class, immigrant, Latinx, and Black communities.

This oral history project embraces some of the shared values rooted in both the Cooper Square CLT and the community land trust movement at large—community control, knowledge exchange, and intergenerational wealth transfer, in this case, in an intangible sense.

The planning of this oral history project started in the Spring of 2022, approximately a year after the passing of Frances Goldin, the founder of one of the oldest anti-displacement organizations in the nation—the Cooper Square Committee. This organization played a crucial role in the establishment of both the Cooper Square CLT and the Cooper Square Mutual Housing Association II. The departure of Goldin and other fierce activists vital for the preservation of the Cooper Square community and the emergence of new leadership in both organizations inspired the creation of this project to learn from the past to act upon the present and imagine the future.

The project was initiated by the Board of Directors of the Cooper Square CLT, under the leadership of board member Gabriela Rendón. The preparation of the oral history involved a four-month period of research and multiple meetings to define its purpose and the type of conversatioons that could help achieve such purpose. During this time, the leadership of the Cooper Square MHA II was invited to discuss the project and share feedback and ideas.

Narrators are the main collaborators of this ongoing collective endeavor. They not only shared their time, experiences, and memories but also took time to listen to their recordings and review their transcripts before being published.

Other key collaborators are the Board of Directors of the Cooper Square CLT comprised of Tom Angotti, Michael Atkins, Harriet Cohen, Larissa Ho, Monxo López, Valois Mickens, and Gabriela Rendón.

Last but not least, students from The New School assisted in transcribing, editing, and indexing the interviews. The research team that worked on the first round of interviews during the Fall 2022 includes Sam Ayala (MS Environmental Policy and Sustainability Management), Em Flaire (BFA Integrated Design), Isis Gamble (Ph.D. Public and Urban Policy), Cristy Garcia (BA Anthropology), Mariana Londono (MA Arts Management and Entrepreneurship), Nan Fang (MS Strategic Design and Management), Anna Roth (MFA Fashion Design and Society), and Lucas Tatarsky (MA International Affairs). Jiray Avedisian, (MS Design and Urban Ecologies), senior researcher from the Housing Justice Oral History Project, conducted similar work for a second round of interviews.