Cooper Square Community Land Trust (2017-2019)
The Cooper Square Community Land Trust Community History Project aims to record the personal histories and opinions of residents of the Cooper Square community of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, particularly those involved directly with the Cooper Square Community Land Trust (CSCLT), the Cooper Square Mutual Housing Association (CSMHA), and the Cooper Square Committee (CSC). Through the collaborative process of producing and archiving oral histories from long-time residents and activists, as well as developing workshops and programming around thse histories, the project seeks to build community and momentum around the neighborhood’s growing Community Land Trust. As neighborhoods like the Lower East Side face gentrification through a powerful brew of decontextualized rezoning, luxury development, land banking, corporate incentivization, and urban rebranding, residents of modest means witness the transformation of their “land” – i.e. their homes, community gardens, public spaces, local stores, and overall neighborhoods – on a daily basis. Most immediately, “land” displacement takes the form of rising rents, poor building management, and landlord harassment. The Cooper Square Community Land Trust works to collectivize land ownership in the service of preserving and developing permanently affordable housing for low, very low (including homeless), and moderate income Lower East Siders at risk of displacement. The trove of materials collected through the CSCLT Community History Project ultimately will be a public resource for the neighborhood, but it may be used, as well, by the CSCLT for advocacy and fundraising purposes.
Rachel Stern
Rebecca Amato
Jonathan Wolf
Maysam Taher
Events 3
710 East 9th Street
New York NY, USA
Oct 2, 2019 | 6:00pm — Sep 12, 2019 8:00pm