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Essex Crossing (Delancey btwn Clinton and Essex)








This shows current construction underway on the “Essex Crossing” area on Delancey between Essex and Clinton. For almost 50 years this area between Grand and Delancey, and Essex and Attorney, sat as a desolate stretch of brick strewn lots, abandoned by the city until a couple years ago. In the late 1950’s, Robert Moses and the Slum Clearance Committee set there eyes on this area, what was then a swathe of predominantly Puerto-Rican and Jewish occupied tenements, as part of their Seward Park Urban Renewal Extension Slum Clearance program. In 1967 this part of the SPURA program was approved, and almost 2,000 residents were forced out of their tenements, promised that they would be able to return to live once new housing was built. However, after demolition, the project was stalled, and only two buildings (now NYCHA housing at 64 Essex and 154 Broome) were ever constructed, housing only about 150 of the original residents.
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