Christopher Mele, in his book “Selling the Lower East Side,” rigorously examines Robert Moses’ urban renewal policy and its effectiveness in salvaging and revitalizing neighborhoods in New York City that were victim to rampant crime and violence as a result of growing slums. Robert Moses is considered by many to be the “master builder” of New York City and Long Island. In the mid-20th century, he proposes a plan to dismember the older, working-class neighborhoods and create new communities segregated by class, ethnicity, race (Mele 131). These plans were dubbed the “Puerto Rican Removal Plans,” because they forcibly relocated Puerto Rican families, many of which had migrated to the United States in the 1950s to replace older immigrants in the least skilled and lowest paying manufacturing jobs. Moses sought to renovate/build housing complexes whose rent would be too expensive for working class minorities to afford. Moses is unsuccessful in this urban renewal, but what he arguably initiates is a form of culture- and ethnic-based segregation that transcends the neighborhood.
The culture- and ethnic- based segregation gives rise to tension and violence, creating an unfavorable environment for property investors and immigrants hoping to achieve upward mobility. This leads to what historians call “the death of the city,” but more importantly, it gives rise to rigid cultural divisions in New York City.
West Indian immigrants, a population that often goes overlooked, have been entering the United States since the turn of the century from Jamaica, Guyana, Trinidad, Barbados, and Haiti (Crowder 2). Despite having fundamental differences from their African American counterparts, the West Indians often find themselves subject to institutionalized skin-based racism. Ethnic dress and British speech patterns do aid the West Indians in differentiating themselves, but the population remains segregated, specifically in central Brooklyn and the Richmond Hill area of Queens. Hopefully this segregation will dissolve as the generations go by.
