Real
Estate Development in the 1980s
Speculation gave way
to development in the mid 1980s and the rules of the
"real estate game" and the type of players
changed dramatically. Since development required
large amounts of capital, the type of investors who
entered the local land market changed and new players
— institutional lenders — appeared. Small-scale
or single "mom and pop" owners began to
drop out and brokerage firms, property management
corporations began to purchase and develop properties.
Increases in real estate activity also triggered the
appearance of banks, savings and loans and other
lending institutions.
The city and state’s
piecemeal development incentives, the fragmented
redevelopment of small real estate parcels, rent
regulations, the abundance of city-owned properties
throughout the neighborhood and the mobilization of
residents against displacement of their community
were all central factors that together explain the
unevenness of restructuring in the East Village in
the 1980s.
Both historical and
current factors accounted for such unevenness. No
large-scale strategic development plan existed that
would allow developers and the state to undertake
evictions and condemnation or finance renovation and
new construction on a massive scale. Another factor
that fettered rampant redevelopment was community
effort to control the disposition of the hundreds of
city-owned buildings and lots that were adjacent to
or sandwiched between private apartment buildings.
Thus redevelopment was a protracted process
undertaken by hundreds of individuals and firms and
carried out literally unit by unit, building by
building and block by block.
Images
(click
to enlarge)
Former
synagogue converted into living space.
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Before
(left) and after (right): an example of
redevelopment.
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The book upon which this
web site is based,
Selling
the Lower East Side,
is available
directly through 
or order through 
Site design © 2000:
Kurt
Reymers and Dan
Webb.
(University at Buffalo, Department of
Sociology)
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