looking east in the direction of
First Avenue in 1938. This picture shows two of the huge
gas holders that gave the area the name
Gas House District; the block in the foreground did not become part of the Stuyvesant Town–Peter Cooper Village complex, but the area on the east side of First Avenue, where the tanks are, did. (
Photo by Berenice Abbott)
Gas House District In 1842, one
gas storage tank was erected at East 23rd Street and the river, quickly followed by the construction of other gas tanks. By the late 19th century, the site of the complex had become known as the "Gas House District" because of the many gas storage tanks owned by
Consolidated Gas Company that dominated the streetscapes. The tanks, which sometimes leaked, made the area undesirable to live in, as did the
Gas House Gang and other predators who operated in the area. The population was predominantly poor, at first largely
Irish, and then
German and
Jewish American. Later,
Slovaks and other Eastern Europeans were the dominant ethnic groups, including a large population of
Armenians who lived in the upper Twenties between
First and
Lexington avenues. Crime in the district was endemic. When
Alexander S. Williams was promoted to police captain on May 31, 1872, and assigned to the area, he met the gangs' violence with equal force of his own, putting together a brute squad that beat up gangsters with clubs. He commented: "There is more law at the end of a policeman's nightstick than in a decision of the Supreme Court." With the construction of the
FDR Drive, the area began to improve. By the 1930s, all but four tanks were gone, In 1945,
The New York Times called the move from the site "the greatest and most significant mass movement of families in New York's history." The last residents of the Gas House district, the Delman family, moved out in May 1946, allowing demolition to be completed shortly thereafter.
Planning Due to a
New York City housing shortage that had been growing since the Depression, Stuyvesant Town was already being planned as a post-war housing project in 1942–43, some years before the end of
World War II. A provision was made that the rental applications of veterans would have selection priority. The complex was developed by the
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, and was based on its earlier development in the
Parkchester neighborhood of
the Bronx, which was completed in 1942. The same companies and developers also built
Riverton, which was completed around the same time. In January 1945, Metropolitan Life mapped out its post-war plans for 6,000 residents of Peter Cooper Village, which would stretch east of First Avenue, between 20th and 22nd streets, while efforts were made to acquire land north of 22nd Street. The project would be an extension of the previously announced Stuyvesant Town. Metropolitan Life president
Frederick H. Ecker said of Stuyvesant Town in its initial offering that it would make it possible for generations of New Yorkers "to live in a park – to live in the country in the heart of New York." On the first day the company received 7,000 applications; it would receive 100,000 applicants by the time of first occupancy. The complex's first tenants, two World War II veterans and their families, moved into the first completed building on August 1, 1947. At the time, rents ranged from $50 to $91 per month.
Controversy Stuyvesant Town was controversial from the beginning. In 1943, the National Association of Housing Officials described the fight as "a battle up to now lacking only in beer bottles and murder." Although nominally a private development, it was championed by Parks Commissioner
Robert Moses, who has been called the "dominant force in [the] creation" of both Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village. At the behest of Mayor
Fiorello La Guardia, Moses sought "to induce insurance companies and savings banks to enter the field of large-scale
slum clearance." It was enabled by various state laws and amendments which permitted private companies to enter what was previously a public field of action. The new
public-private partnership, and the contract entered between the city and the developer, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, were the source of much debate. Among the issues at stake were use of the power of
eminent domain for private purposes; the reversion of public streets and land, such as public school property, to private ownership; the 25-year tax exemption granted by the contract; and the lack of any restrictions on the company prohibiting discrimination in selecting tenants. When the $50 million Stuyvesant Town plan was approved by the
City Planning Commission on May 20, 1943, by a five to one vote, discrimination against
African-Americans was already a significant topic of debate. Councilmen
Stanley M. Isaacs and
Benjamin J. Davis Jr. sought to introduce a provision into the contract that would prevent racial or religious discrimination in tenant selection. This provision was not accepted; those who rejected it, including Robert Moses, argued that the company's profitability would be harmed, and that opponents were "obviously looking for a political issue and not for results in the form of actual slum clearance." In the years after it opened, Black people were barred from living in the complex. Metropolitan Life's president,
Frederick H. Ecker, stated that "negroes and whites do not mix". He also believed that
integrating Stuyvesant Town would depress demand for, and hence valuation of, other real estate in the area. As a result of pressure from Metropolitan Life, he was dismissed from his new position as well.Lawsuits were filed on the basis that the project was public or semi-public, and thus violated anti-discrimination laws for New York City public housing. In July 1947, a
New York Supreme Court judge ruled that the development was private and that, in the absence of laws to the contrary, the company could discriminate as it saw fit. The judge wrote, "It is well settled that the landlord of a private apartment or dwelling house may, without violating any provision of the Federal or State Constitutions, select tenants of its own choice because of race, color, creed or religion... Clearly, housing accommodation is not a recognized civil right." By this date, Metropolitan Life was building the
Riverton Houses, a
separate-but-equal housing project in
Harlem with residents who were mainly Black. Some years later, the company admitted a few Black families to Stuyvesant Town and a few white families to Riverton. Both projects, however, remain largely segregated. The fight to end the segregation of Stuyvesant Town continued after. The white residents formed the
Village Tenants Committee to End Discrimination in Stuyvesant Town, and started subletting their apartments to Black Americans. Metlife attempted to evict the leaders of this committee in retaliation. 1,800 tenants were a part of the committee and, the groups survey found that 2/3rds of all tenant residents opposed the segregation policy. Lorch, one of the tenants subletting their place to a black family said of it, "Tenants here . . . will fight
Jim Crow no matter what the Metropolitan tries to do."'''
Eventually with public pressure, and the passage of the NY state Brown-Isaacs law, banning discrimination in publicly subsidized private housing in 1958, Metlife eventually marginally complied with the regulation. However it would be decades before the Brown-Issacs law was enforced with any teeth and as such still remained largely segregated. Recent years 2006 sale In October 2006, MetLife agreed to sell the complex to
Tishman Speyer Properties and the real estate arm of
BlackRock for $5.4 billion. The sale was expected to close by November 15, 2006, according to documents which
CB Richard Ellis, a commercial real estate broker representing MetLife, sent to bidders. MetLife hired a broker, who started registering bidders, and intended to name a winner by November 2006. The sale had drawn interest from dozens of prospective buyers, including New York's top real estate families, pension funds, international investment banks and investors from
Dubai, according to
The New York Times, citing real estate executives.
New York City Council member
Daniel Garodnick, a lifelong resident of Peter Cooper Village, attempted to organize tenants and investors to place a buyout bid on the complex. Initially, MetLife deemed the tenants group an unqualified bidder, but, after being pressured by elected officials, the company reversed its position, and distributed bid books to the tenant group; bids were to have been submitted by October 5, 2006. Bids included the tenants' $4.6 billion offer, a bid by
Vornado Realty Trust, a joint offer between
Lehman Brothers and
The Related Companies, and one by
Apollo Global Management which came within $100 million of Speyer's $5.4 billion. On January 22, 2007, a class action lawsuit was filed against MetLife, Tishman Speyer Properties, and their associates on behalf of the market rate tenants of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village. The suit claimed that MetLife was improperly charging tenants "market rate" rents while at the same time receiving real estate tax benefits from the City of New York under the
J-51 program, which requires property owners to maintain apartments as
rent-stabilized during the period in which they are receiving benefits. The lawsuit asked for a monetary award of between $215 million and $320 million in rent overcharges and damages. Furthermore, it called for the market rate apartments to revert to rent stabilization until the expiration of the J-51 benefit period, sometime after 2017.
2010 default In January 2010, Tishman Speyer Properties defaulted on the mortgage, the largest commercial mortgage default in U.S. history; later that month, Tishman Speyer Properties gave up control of the properties by handing the complex to creditors, thereby avoiding a
bankruptcy of the site. The default was predicted many months in advance; Fitch ratings downgraded the associated CMBS in August 2009. As of January 2010, the complex was estimated to be worth around $1.9 billion or less than 40 percent of the $5.4 billion the property was purchased for in 2006. While the legal battle over rent stabilization played a small role in the demise, it is likely Tishman Speyer would have defaulted even had it won the case. The assumptions underlying the $5.4 billion 2006 valuation were extremely aggressive; the valuation assumed that the income from the properties would triple by 2011. Blackstone had recently raised a $15.8 billion fund, the largest real-estate fund ever. New York City was expected to contribute $225 million to help preserve a portion of the complex as affordable to low- and middle-income residents. Under a binding agreement with the city, Blackstone agreed to keep roughly 5,000 units below market rents until at least 2035. Most of those units would be aimed at what the developers and the city classify as "middle income" families: two-bedroom apartments, for example, would rent for about $3,200 a month, a rent considered affordable for a family of three making up to $128,000 a year, though the
median household income in New York City as of the 2011–2015
American Community Survey was $53,373. The
Federal National Mortgage Association would be providing Blackstone with a $2.7 billion loan through
Wells Fargo Multifamily Capital, and the debt would have a term of 10 years. The $5.45 billion sale was completed in December 2015.
SL Green had threatened to file a lawsuit to block the sale, but was paid $10 million to drop its suit. Growing rents and a gradual conversion of more rent-regulated units to market rates brought the net operating income of the property up each year from 2006 – 2015. At the end of 2015, about 45% of the complex's residents were paying regulated rents – down from 71% in 2006 – and income was above $200 million a year. As of January 2023, 6,200 units were rent regulated. ==Architecture==