Joshua Freeman

Union-sponsored nonprofit housing was affordable to a plumber or a garment worker with a steady job and a union contract.

It was not necessarily affordable to a lower level of the working class.

The poorer segment of slum dwellers were more likely to be African-American or Puerto Rican.

So in fact, a lot of the union co-ops

were almost all white.

You know, I mean, in some cases, they were literally all white.

I think you could argue that the UHF was, in effect, a kind of arm of the government, you know?

They became so central to what the UHF did in terms of providing mortgage money and tax abatements and zoning and land clearance that, in a way, you could kind of argue they captured the UHF.

Co-op City itself was the quagmire from which the movement could never escape.

That was it.