Katie Mingle

This had been similar to the racial makeup of the Bronx at the time.

But by the mid-1970s, the Bronx was changing, and so was Co-op City.

In a 1986 documentary about rap in New York City called Big Fun in the Big Town, the filmmakers interviewed a group of students from Harry S. Truman High on the grounds of Co-op City.

You can see the skyscrapers in the background.

Anne-Marie says that with this racial transition came some anxiety about crime and what would become of this middle class development.

And that investment may have helped create some stability during a decade when much of the Bronx was emptying out.

It's harder to just pick up and leave when you have to sell your share or when you feel tied to a place, not just as a renter, but as a co-owner.

This is Frank Garritti.

His parents, who are Puerto Rican, moved to Co-op City during its big racial shift in the 80s, and they're still there today.

Wow.

Do you think the cooperative structure of the place has like contributed to kind of how long they've been there?

Like that's a long time to live in a place.

Frank's parents are part of a huge constituency of older residents who currently live in Co-op City.

In fact, the development has become the largest naturally occurring retirement community, or NORC, in the U.S., partly because it's an affordable place to live on a fixed income in a very expensive city.

And it's true that the development has needed continued subsidies from the state over the years.

Building on top of a swamp has meant ongoing structural issues that residents have not been able to afford on their own.

But if Co-op City once served as a cautionary tale about the perils of big government ambition, it now stands as a reminder of what that kind of ambition can create.

The last time anyone built housing on this scale in New York City, well, you just heard the story of it.

It was after World War II, spearheaded by people like Robert Moses and Abraham Kazin.

They made a lot of extremely harmful mistakes along the way, bulldozing neighborhoods, displacing residents, treating whole communities like they were expendable.