Co-op City
4/21/202638 min
The world’s largest housing co-op—built to save New York City’s middle class—became the unlikely site of a resident revolt
Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of 99% Invisible ad-free and a whole week early.
Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsRoman Mars· Host0:01
This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars. [instrumental music] If you've ever driven into New York City from the north, there's a good chance you passed by a massive cluster of high-rise apartment buildings just as you enter the Bronx. 35 buildings in total, all of them with identical brick facades, all over 20 stories tall.
Katie Mingle0:23
I remember the first time I saw these buildings, riding a Greyhound bus into the city from Worcester, Massachusetts.
Roman Mars· Host0:31
99PI producer emeritus Katie Mingle is back to tell our story this week.
Katie Mingle0:36
I was in my early 20s at the time, and I'd never really seen skyscrapers that weren't office buildings. These buildings, I could tell, were people's homes. I could see laundry hanging on balconies way up on, like, the 22nd floor. There was something thrilling, but also almost frightening, about contemplating the number of individual lives playing out in just one of those skyscrapers. It had the effect of making me feel very small and insignificant, the way looking at something incomprehensibly large can sometimes do. I think I assumed at the time that what I was looking at was a public housing project, but I know now that it wasn't. This cluster of high-rises was, and is, the largest housing cooperative in the world, Co-op City.
Roman Mars· Host1:27
When Co-op