Ours to Lose : When Squatters Became Homeowners in New York City

Though New York’s Lower East Side today is home to high-end condos and hip restaurants, it was for decades an infamous site of blight, open-air drug dealing, and class conflict—an emblematic example of the tattered state of 1970s and ’80s Manhattan. Those decades of strife, however, also gave the Lower East Side something unusual: a radical movement that blended urban homesteading and European-style squatting in a way never before seen in the United States. __Ours to Lose__ tells the oral history of that movement through a close look at a diverse group of Lower East Side squatters who occupied abandoned city-owned buildings in the 1980s, fought to keep them for decades, and eventually began a long, complicated process to turn their illegal occupancy into legal cooperative ownership. Amy Starecheski here not only tells a little-known New York story, she also shows how property shapes our sense of ourselves as social beings and explores the ethics of homeownership and debt in post-recession America. “The fascinating and little-known tale of the Lower East Side squatters of the Eighties . . . a radical, European-inspired housing movement” (The Village Voice). Though New York’s Lower East Side today is home to high-end condos and hip restaurants, it was for decades an infamous site of blight, open-air drug dealing, and class conflict—an emblematic example of the tattered state of 1970s and ’80s Manhattan. Those decades of strife, however, also gave the Lower East Side something unusual: a radical movement that blended urban homesteading and European-style squatting in a way never before seen in the United States. Ours to Lose tells the oral history of that movement through a close look at a diverse group of Lower East Side squatters who occupied abandoned city-owned buildings in the 1980s, fought to keep them for decades, and eventually began a long, complicated process to turn their illegal occupancy into legal cooperative ownership. Amy Starecheski here not only tells a little-known New York story, she also shows how property shapes our sense of ourselves as social beings and explores the ethics of homeownership and debt in post-recession America. “There are many books about the Lower East Side and its recent transformation, yet none has included engagement or oral history with primary organizers in the way Starecheski has. Ours to Lose is a unique and substantive contribution to our understanding of a most distinct practice in the shaping of urban space.” —Metropolitiques “What is significant is that the author demonstrates how some New Yorkers addressed the housing crisis in an unconventional manner. Recommended.” —Choice Though New York’s Lower East Side today is heavily gentrified, it spent decades as an infamous site of blight, open-air drug dealing, and class conflict—an emblematic example of the tattered state of 1970s and ’80s Manhattan. Those decades of strife, however, also gave the Lower East Side something unusual: a radical movement that blended urban homesteading and European-style squatting into something never before seen in the United States. Ours to Lose tells the story of that social movement through a close look at a diverse group of Lower East Side squatters who occupied abandoned city-owned buildings in the 1980s, fought to keep them for decades, and eventually began a long, complicated process to turn their illegal occupancy into legal cooperative ownership. The squatters had made moral and political claims on urban space that, in a rare turn of events, turned into legal rights. These persistent squatters created almost a dozen low-income, limited equity co-operative buildings in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in New York but also, more intangibly, a sprawling network of chosen family, a history of struggle, a repertoire of tactics, and a story that continues to inspire others to ask: Is it possible to create a space outside of capitalism? Combining oral history and ethnography, Ours to Lose not only tells a little-known New York City story, it also shows how property shapes our sense of ourselves as social beings and explores the ethics of homeownership and debt in post-recession America Before the Lower East Side was one of the most expensive and heavily gentrified neighborhoods in New York City, it was infamous as a site of class conflict, abandonment, and open-air drug dealing. With a deep radical history and a thriving arts scene, it was also the incubator for a squatting movement that blended urban homesteading and European-style squatting into something never before seen in the United States. Ours to Lose by anthropologist and historian Amy Starecheski follows a diverse group of Lower East Side squatters as they occupied abandoned city-owned buildings in the 1980s, defended them for decades, and then, in 2002, began a long and difficult process of converting their illegal occupation into legal cooperative ownership. This book does not just tell an interesting story about housing in New York. It uses this case to shed light on how property is crucial to our sense of ourselves as social beings. Starecheski also draws out surprising lessons about homeownership and the morality of debt in post-recession America. This is a timely contribution to the literature on urban housing, inequality, and direct political action by socially marginalized New Yorkers living just a few blocks from Wall Street. Contents The Narrators The Eleven Buildings Introduction Casa del Sol Why Study Squatting? The Research and Writing: Oral History and Ethnography Structure of the Work 1. From Drug Murder to Door Ceremony: Claiming Buildings, Building Claims April 1984: Opening 539 Disinvestment, Abandonment, and the Social Roots of Squatting Urban Homesteading: Property, Labor, and Rights 2. Who Deserves Housing?: The Battle for East Thirteenth Street Life on East Thirteenth Street: 1984–94 Low-Income Housing versus the Squatters Making Claims through Adverse Possession 3. Making the Deal: Debating the Values of Housing The Negotiations The Details of the Deal The Debates 4. Why Work?: The Values of Labor Building Community: Labor and Value Bureaucracy, Labor, and Power 5. Making Claims on the Past and the Future: Debt, Kinship, History, and the Temporality of Homeownership Claims on the Self: Debt, Freedom, and Social Personhood Claims on One Another: From Family to Co-op Claims on the Neighborhood: History, Space, and Identity Conclusion Acknowledgments Abbreviations Notes References Index Though New York's Lower East Side today is home to high-end condos and hip restaurants, it was for decades an infamous site of blight, open-air drug dealing, and class conflict - an emblematic example of the tattered state of 1970s and '80s Manhattan. Those decades of strife, however, also gave the Lower East Side something unusual: a radical movement that blended urban homesteading and European-style squatting in a way never before seen in the United States. 'Ours to Lose' tells the oral history of that movement through a close look at a diverse group of Lower East Side squatters who occupied abandoned city-owned buildings in the 1980s, fought to keep them for decades, and eventually began a long, complicated process to turn their illegal occupancy into legal cooperative ownership