“Electchester technically comprises just 38 buildings — squat brick towers tucked neatly between the Long Island Expressway and NYCHA’s Pomonok Houses. But residents of the co-op complex know it’s really about what winds among the actual apartments: two shopping centers, a bowling alley, a public school, a library. A nearly century-old Jewish club that meets in an imposing office building with its original mid-century phone booths. The “rumpus rooms” in residential basements, where a Cub Scout pack gathers and children’s birthday parties are held. On any given night, a handful of clubs — the Motorcycle Club, the Electrical Welfare Club — might assemble. There’s no real need to ever leave Electchester except to commute into Manhattan for work, the same way it’s always been — a slice of 1950s middle-class utopia smack in the middle of Queens.”

Lmao never thought I’d see Electchester posted here. Shout out to Action Bronson.

This is really interesting. Is it still only for electricians, or was that just when it was originally built?

“Send a letter to 65-46 160th Street, Flushing, New York, 11365 requesting an application. Electchester management denies it, but some residents think Local No. 3 affiliates are still better off in the housing process, so definitely include mention of any union ties in your letter and application. “It’s my impression that those Local No. 3 connections live on a little,” says Andrew Fischer, who, in the late ’90s, got an apartment in a few months despite what he remembers as something like a one-to-two-year waiting list at the time.”

I don't know why this isn't done more. The ILGWU sponsored apartments on 8th in Chelsea and Manhattan Plaza in Hell's Kitchen was sponsored by Broadway unions and guilds.

The "Build affordable housing" crowd should be focused on getting SEIU, UFT etc to do something like this. The unions have deep pension funds and members who need to live near their jobs. I don't see why this isn't more common...

We need more housing like this again.

IMO an effective astroturf campaign by landlord/real estate interests in NYC and elsewhere.

Montreal will soon open a 42 mile metro system built by a pension fund.

Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ; lit. 'Quebec Deposit and Investment Fund') https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caisse_de_dépôt_et_placement_du_Québec

REM Montreal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Réseau_express_métropolitain

I know several people who live there who are not electricians. Two sons and their parents, 3 separate apartments. They've been there for decades. I'm not sure exactly how they got in, but I believe the father had connections.

Ask the 1950s why, not the 2020s.

But I'll tell you the answer: They had NYCHA. They didn't need to build their own housing. If you look at the pictures in the article, you couldn't tell the difference between Electchester and Pomonok Houses across the street.

And then came the lawsuits of the 1970s that forced NYCHA to accept the kind of people you see there today.

Can you explain that last sentence a little more?

NYCHA historically denied non-white people housing until the late 60s/70s. So the “working poor” that they were built for originally were not actually as poor as you see today because of racial disparities in income, education, number of children etc.

On top of this, once the projects went majority black they lost any political goodwill that used to be aimed towards them as uplifting places for working poor, now they became dens of vice and crime for people who get handouts, beginning a self fulfilling prophecy that perpetuates itself even today.

Most of why the projects suck so badly is literally just racism, and trying to have the buildings torn down by the process of neglect, with no replacements in sight for their residents.

It wasn't about race, it was about homelessness. They sued to force NYCHA to accept people who were homeless, literally destitute, rather than the "working poor" who simply needed affordable housing.

They always accepted non-white tenants but there was segregation, but that was already being ended in the 1960s.

Half and half. Half is regular Mitchell-Llama, the other half under purview of Local 3, IBEW.

America's agricultural industry, Ford, AT&T, IBM and all the unions that built our cities have surprisingly cooperative origin stories -- and government essentially forced Rockefellers and Carnegies to develop American "noblesse oblige."

The govt didn't position itself against huge private interests for a long time during and after the Cold War, the "freedom" to get rich being our main ideological weapon.

But so many places where you see deeply rooted communities, there were working people who chose to lift each other up. If you're talking about our history, the current individualism is unusual.

I don’t think that’s true. The entire development is Mitchell Lama.

Source: lived here all my life, as did my parents, and my grandparents were original tenants.

Entire development IS Mitchell-Llama, but part of it is managed by LOCAL 3. Which also handles applications and limits them to members.

Source: Local 3 electrician.