He stirred up in that bloodpot of human hearts
When he drawed that color line. . .
From: https://woodyguthrie.org/Lyrics/Old_Man_Trump.htm
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| The multi-building project called Shore Haven, an FHA (Federal Housing Authority) supported project. |
Fred Trump's Housing Project
Fred Trump, father of ex-president Donald Trump, was a real estate and housing developer active in New York City. In the 1970s, he was sued for discriminating against minorities as tenants with employees testifying that they were not to rent to blacks or Puerto Ricans. His settlement was the largest for that type of suit up to the time.
I decided to take advantage of census information and look at the make-up of Fred Trump's tenants during an earlier period.
Census material is available to the public only after 70 years and the 1950 census is accessible online.
Along with identifying where individuals lived, this census included race listed as: W (White), Neg (Negro), American Indian (Ind), Japanese (Jap), Chinese (Chi), Filipino (Fil), and other (spell out). The country of birth was noted (as well as other information).
The Shore Haven Housing Complex.
According to a seminar on the history of the neighborhood presented by CUNY:
"In 1949, Shore Haven Apartments were built by Fred Trump on 21st Avenue near the Belt Parkway. The apartments were built over 16 acres and were mostly six-story buildings. Thirty-eight buildings were built, resulting in 1,344 apartments for families. Also, parts of Cropsey Avenue were used to built (sic) a shopping center as part of the housing project. At that time, this was the largest private housing development in Brooklyn."
The above article goes on to say that this neighborhood was the fictional setting of such movies and television shows as Saturday Night Fever, Welcome Back Kotter, and The Honeymooners.
Census Data
Census information regarding the Shore Haven Apartments is available online and listed as Enumeration Districts 24-2405 to 24-2409, Kings County, New York, comprising 149 census pages and 5 summary pages. Up to 30 individuals are presented per page.
I went through the pages and hand-counted households, number of residents, ethnicity, and country of birth. Very few apartments at Shore Haven were listed as vacant.
The census enumerated 1301 households with 3717 tenants.
So, what is the racial make-up of the entries? This was easy to determine: page after page, the same. All the entries (100%) where race was noted were W (white). There were not any labeled as Negroes, Chinese, Japanese, American Indian, Filipino, or Other. There were two tenants listed as born in Africa (country unspecified) and white, two born in China and white, one born in Japan (white), and one born in Haiti (white). The Japanese birth is listed as an infant and it is quite possible that the parents had been there for post-World War II military reasons.
Countries of birth were noted, with 589 individuals identified as born outside of the United States. These are the countries, other than America, with at least five individuals (hand-counted):
Russia 202
Poland 86
Austria 48
England 33
Italy 28
Germany 27
Romania 23
Canada 22
Hungary 19
Czechoslovakia 14
France 9
Holland 8
Lithuania 7
Chile 5
Switzerland 5
I did not attempt an analysis of surnames, however, I did note that there were many classically Jewish names, suggesting little to no exclusion for this reason. The large number of Eastern Europeans may also have reflected Jewish immigration.
I realized early on that, among the countries of birth, Ireland was not mentioned. I eventually ran into one entry, listed as a mother-in-law, suggesting that the wife (born in the U.S.), was also of Irish ancestry.
Were the Irish also discriminated against? Of course, you don't have to be born in Ireland to have Irish heritage. The only other way of approaching this matter was to look at surnames. I could not determine the origin of all surnames and some surnames can be either Irish or from another country. As a compromise, I decided to search the listings for what are described as the top twenty Irish surnames in the United States. I came across a single entry: a family named Murphy. It can be argued that Bensonhurst is not a particularly Irish neighborhood. Nevertheless, out of over 3700 individuals, so few being Irish seems beyond chance. Bensonhurst is not a particularly British neighborhood, and yet there were 33 entries born in England and two from Scotland.
The 1970s lawsuit against Fred Trump also said that he discriminated against renting to Puerto Ricans. One tenant in the census was listed as born in Puerto Rico: listed with another family. Her occupation, maid, presumably a live-in maid.
The large predominance of foreign-born individuals in the Shore Haven project came from Europe. Ex-President Donald Trump has recently complained of immigrants from virtually every continent but Europe.
"They’re poisoning the blood of our country," Trump told the crowd at a rally in New Hampshire. "That’s what they’ve done. They poison mental institutions and prisons all over the world, not just in South America, not just to three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world. They’re coming into our country from Africa, from Asia, all over the world."
Trump Tower
The folk singer, Woody Guthrie, moved into another Fred Trump housing complex in late 1950, Beach Haven. His song summed up the situation:
Beach Haven is Trump's Tower
Where no black folks come to roam.
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| Fred Trump in the 1980s |
My recent novel, Floor 24, set in Manhattan in the 1920s is available from Oliver-Heber books.
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| Floor 24 Oliver-Heber Books |
"From the mob underworld to the tops of new skyscrapers, Floor 24 is a heart-thumping New York 1920's historical mystery!" - Holly Newman, bestselling author of A Chance Inquiry mystery series.