This paper concerns the area of Manhattan known as the Lower East Side (LES), which coincides with Community Board District 3 (see map). Its boundaries are 4th Avenue and the Bowery on the west, 14th Street on the north, the East River on the east, and the Brooklyn Bridge on the south. Within this area there are many smaller neighborhoods including the East Village (14th Street to East Houston, west of Avenue A), Loisida (14th Street to East Houston, around Avenue C), the Lower East Side neighborhood (the part of the district below East Houston Street), and various other smaller neighborhoods whose borders are constantly being redefined.

“Gentrification� is an important concept in this paper, and it is important to make clear its usage here. Gentrification describes the process by which middle-class "gentry" displace working-class or poor residents in a neighborhood. Sociologist Ruth Glass first coined the term in 1964 to describe how, “Many of the working-class quarters of London have been invaded by the middle class – upper and lower.� She noted that gentrification progresses, “rapidly until all or most of the original working-class occupiers are displaced and the whole social character of the district is changed� (Glass, 1964, xviii).

Early gentrification in neighborhoods like the LES was a little different. The process usually started with the arrival of artists and musicians—bohemian types—followed by the businesses that catered to them—cafes, bars and galleries. This social gentrification quickly began to displace the “original� occupiers and was then followed by middle-class or white-collar gentrifiers—professionals working in the Financial District to the south and the Midtown Business District to the north. The gentrification of the 1970s could be called social gentrification, while the wave that began late in that decade and continues today is more of an economic gentrification. The distinction will become apparent by the end of the paper after the differing characteristics of the gentrifiers are explicated.

“Improvement� is another important concept in this discussion. It is used by different factions to mean different things. Politicians, planners and developers speak of improving the district. In their case the word means “redevelopment,� a formal planning term for upgrading the physical infrastructure and increasing an area’s property values. In most cases, politicians, planners and developers view the addition of new housing stock as an improvement. Often, the improvements made by local government agents are not directed at the current residents of a district but instead are aimed at attracting higher class (economically and socially) residents to the area. Self-help community activists also describe their actions as improving the neighborhood. In most cases, they mean improving the physical characteristics and quality of life for the current residents. In this paper, the author uses the latter definition of “improvement.�

The author often uses “government� to denote individual and institutional government actors and the roles they played in the redevelopment of the LES. Often, the actions of government agents and planners serve the interest of the moneyed elite and real estate industry. The labels “politicians� and “planners� are used in a similar fashion. The interests of these players often run contrary to the interests of community gardeners, squatters and residents, especially in the history of the LES.

Much has been written about the rampant real estate disinvestment that took place on the LES and in other inner-city neighborhoods around the country during the 1960s and 1970s. The LES has been a particularly popular study area. Rather than rewrite all the volumes that have been written on the subject, this work investigates some major themes of disinvestment during the late 1960s through early 1980s—abandonment, the tax structure, redlining, slum clearance, and reduction of city services—in order to uncover an underlying government goal of social control of LES residents. Analyzing the history of shifting government policies with respect to of housing subsidies, law enforcement and other service provision suggests that these policies were ultimately intended to defuse the inner-city powder keg of resident resistance. By fragmenting low-income residents, government made way for a different social and economic class to repopulate the area.