The Map of New York City Housing Authority’s Nathan Straus Houses
Situated in the Kips Bay neighborhood of Manhattan,
New York City Housing Authority’s (NYCHA) Nathan Straus Houses are located on 224 E 28th St, New York, NY 10016.
Completed January 31st, 1965
The development is made up of 2 buildings, about 19-20 floors each.
Observations
(The following observations were made on April 20th, 2017)
The Nathan Straus houses are situated on the Lower East side of New York City. Specifically, they are located in the Kips Bay area, an area of the Lower East side associated with the residences surrounding 1st and 2nd Avenues. Upon visiting this residence, we noticed that there were many close by convenience stores that would be helpful for residents. This included laundromats, locations for cheap food, and also the nearby Bellevue Hospital Center, which residents said gave them security in case anything bad were to happen. Transportation was also convenient, as the M15 bus ran on 2nd Street and the 6 train 28th Street station was just one Avenue away. Also, on the right side of the Straus complex was a parking lot for NYCHA residents’ vehicles. Upon walking around the Straus houses, we observed that many of the side entrances were obscured by scaffolding from impending construction work, which we thought may lead to increased crime or drug activity. Interestingly enough, attached to the Straus houses was its own performing arts center. Out of all the residences that classmates spoke about during the observation phase of their NYCHA semester long project, none spoke of their housing complex having an amenity of this nature.
Despite the successful integration of the Straus houses into a busy and safe area of New York City, upon approaching the development, we saw the quality of people and stores surrounding the area change almost suddenly. The block on which the Straus houses were situated felt like a changed environment from the previous few blocks, as a few residents were panhandling on the sides of the street and people were loitering outside stores with dirty, run-down awnings. Aside from this first impression, it seemed like the areas on the side of the building (along East 27th Street and E 28th Street) were peaceful and seemed safe enough to be comfortable around during all light hours of the day. As we were walking under the scaffolding towards the side entrance of the Straus houses, residents entering and exiting this side door looked at us and gave us the impression that we were out of place. In the five minutes that we were standing outside of this exit, we observed suspicious behavior by multiple residents, who were likely participating in drug activity. In addition, we spotted the same toothless woman, who had been panhandling down the block, claiming she was homeless, entering and exiting the Straus building with another suspicious individual. Although the surrounding area was felt safe overall, this activity did give us the impression that drug activity was still quite prevalent at the Nathan Straus residence.
Interview
(The following interview was conducted on April 20th, 2017)
At the Nathan Straus houses, classmates were lucky enough to interview Jennifer, 25 years old, and Leslie, who was 23 years old. Jennifer did most of the talking. She stated that she her ethnicity was Hispanic, and that she had lived in the Straus houses for 8 years. Upon first glance, Jennifer and Leslie appeared to be well dressed individuals who, at first glance, one would not assume lived in public housing. Although many public housing applications take years to be approved, Jennifer stated that her application process had been expedited due to having an emergency case. At 17, she had given birth to a young child, which didn’t allow her enough space in her current apartment. Because of this reason, Jennifer, her two children, and her other family members were moved into Nathan Straus in just 3 months, which had more space to suit their needs. Although this reasoning seemed to us not sufficient to be categorized as an emergency case, we suspected that domestic violence could likely have played into this expedited process, despite Jennifer neglecting to tell us any further reasoning.
As for living in NYCHA housing, Jennifer and Leslie did say that they liked living there, but only as a temporary place of residence. There was a nice community of people who they were friends with, one who walked up to the door and greeted them by name as we were conducting the interview. However, they did complain about the sanitary conditions in the building, as people often lacks to clean up the spit and garbage which frequently accumulates on the floor. This, in turn, has led to rodent problems, from mice to cockroaches, which they stated have led to problems in electrical wiring. Another complaint which we learned through the interview was the slow response to repair requests. Jennifer informed us that each homeowner is only given two keys for their household, which are stamped so they cannot be copied. Because of this, residents without a key must enter using their intercom button located on the outside of the door. Jennifer complained, however, that her intercom button had been broken for the past 6 months, with no response from NYCHA regarding her complaint. This led her and Leslie to be stuck outside the door until someone opened it for them, which coincidentally gave us a perfect opportunity to interview.
Surprisingly, Leslie and Jennifer expressed that they would prefer NYCHA to focus their efforts to improving the security of the building over the sanitary conditions they mentioned. According to them, there are robberies, many residents dying from drug overdoses, and other crimes frequently occurring in the building. Additionally, there was only one doorman for the multiple entrances to the houses, which gave access to unscreened visitors. Although elevators are working every day at some point, Jennifer mentioned that they break down at least 3 times a week. Because of this, and the frequency of drug addicts falling asleep in the stairwells, this makes them afraid to take the stairs, uncertain of how safe they will be. Both individuals felt that, if security was better addressed, it would “kill two birds with one stone;” with better security, fewer unruly people would be present in the building, which would likely lead to less trash and meager sanitary conditions on all floors of the building.
Overall, however, Jennifer and Leslie stated without doubt that Nathan Straus would not be their long term place of residence. Instead, they felt that Straus was an important stepping stone that would give them the financial stability to live in a nicer and safer residence in the near future. Despite the odds, which state the NYCHA residents live in their publicly-funded homes for more than 20 years, hopefully Leslie and Jennifer will be able to move out soon enough in order to develop their lives further than their current environment permits them to.
