The early and mid 1900’s saw the greater development of New York City and its surrounding boroughs. With extended subway lines reaching to the City’s then undeveloped areas, people began migrating away from New York City’s urban core to its more residential neighborhoods. The area in which I grew up, Co-op City, was built between 1966 and 1973. It stands as one of the largest housing cooperative developments in the world; located in the most northeastern section of the Bronx. However, before this area had been constructed into a housing complex, it was home to Freedom Land- a 205-acre national theme park.
Freedom Land officially opened its doors on June 19, 1960 offering its first 65,000 visitors a chance to explore the history of their homeland, U.S.A. Designer and constructor Cornelius Vanderbilt Wood, who in previous years helped in the planning of Disneyland, created the amusement park in the shape of the United States with each section of the park taking its visitors back to significant historical events in that part of the country. This advertisement from the park’s opening makes note of the site’s main attractions:
The entire park cost 65 billion to build and included 8 miles of navigable waterways, 10,000 newly planted trees, 18 restaurants and snack bars and parking for up to 72,000 cars. Freedom Land was easily accessible by car unlike Coney Island, which at the time was suffering from an ongoing decline.
Despite the park’s unifying theme and family appeal, it approached its downfall not long after its opening at the end of 1964. Two main issues leading to the close of Freedom Land were the park’s foundation and its accessibility. The northeastern region of the Bronx on which this park was built was partially filled swampland that had previously been use as a landfill. This caused a rampant mosquito problem for the park during its months of operation in the summer. Aside from this, Freedom Land also experienced issues of accessibility. Although the theme park could be easily reached by car, it was out of the way of the subway lines that serviced the Bronx and required a connecting bus that would reach the outskirts of the borough. In comparison, four different subway lines could reach Coney Island. These among other reasons made Cornelius Wood’s dream of a historical national theme park short-lived.
After the close of Freedom Land in 1964, construction on a new housing community soon began. From May 1966 to 1973 Co-op City was constructed and allowed residents to move in as early as the winter of 1968. In its early days, Co-op City was home to a largely Italian, Jewish and Irish community. However, as these populations began to move away in later decades, the neighborhood began to reflect the primarily Black and Hispanic population of the Bronx as a whole. The entire housing complex is split into 5 sections, which collectively contains 15,372 units. Only a fifth of the region was developed leaving space for parks and green areas. Co-op can be considered a city within itself. It has three grade schools, two middle schools and a high school with a planetarium. It also boasts a firehouse, three shopping centers, a power plant and a 4-story air conditioning generator. Although Co-op City revitalized this far off region of the Bronx, it has also dealt with setbacks.
Co-op City’s foundation being swamp ground causes the land surrounding the neighborhoods structures to sink a fraction of an inch per year requiring constant maintenance of sidewalks and building entrances. Despite the maintenance issues that have plagued this area of the Bronx since its fruition, it has a surprising legacy as a theme park and a current standing as a well developed housing community.
This is a nice overview of Co-op City with interesting details of its earlier life as a theme park. However, this is a tricky post in a way because it deals with neither the Recession nor the Depression yet is still a good, worthwhile read. In order to fit it better into the overall Then-and-Now assignment, I’d like you to make a few tweaks.
Co-op City is partly famous because it was union-built–the Amalgamated Clothing Workers constructed it for working class New Yorkers, and it was integrated from the beginning–although white flight quickly took place against the backdrop of the 1970s urban crisis in NYC. It’s also classic Le Corbusier–towers in the park and all. Given these two things, I think you can talk briefly about the Depression-era context of New York’s radical labor union culture, the early attempts to bring International Style architecture to the US, and the ideals of that early architecture (the social democratic ideals that disappeared after WWII). Those things are the long term context of Co-op City, which was sort of the death gasp of the old social democratic vision in NYC (the one Freeman mourns and describes the death of in “The Fiscal Crisis” chapter), broadened to include not just white workers but all workers.
Finally, a little more discussion of how the Recession has impacted Co-op City would strengthen this post as well (check the New York Times, which has run stories on CC in the last few years).
I’m looking forward to seeing your visuals!
I remember going to work with my father (Charlie Santoro) when he worked for Civetta. He was an operating engineer…. Ran the old Northwest backhoes and draglines. I used to walk all around that place during the early years of construction with dump trucks, graders, bulldozers and backhoes running about all around me. Imagine a 10 year old kid doing that today. Shoot…There, I sat underneath the largest air conditioner in the world on a Dellwood milk crate. It’s right next to the power house. Funny….it was not even one hour ago that I was looking at old photos of my father on a new Northwest backhoe. Where was this new Northwest backhoe you ask? Why…Co-Op City of course. Ahh, the good old days. R.I.P. Dad.
I thought your post was a nice concise history of the Co-op City. I also enjoyed and was impressed by the fact that you actually examined the fundamental faults of the project, and analyzed its downfall. Your post could have done well with some visuals, especially due in part to the structural and geographic challenges which led to the disarray of Co-op City. Also, considering this was a residential-use construction, I feel your post could have used some human perspective documenting the living conditions of the buildings.
I think it’s really interesting that you researched the neighborhood you grew up in- makes me want to do similar research on the one I grew up in! Were you surprised at anything you learned through your research? Very well written, I enjoyed reading it!
I really enjoyed reading your post. I feel as though the detailed numbers and dates really helped me to create a general sense of Freedom Park as the amusement park and Co-op City as a housing community. And I agree with Johanna that it’s very interesting that you researched your own neighborhood!