Working Class Utopia: When Co-op City Opened in the Bronx

On December 11, 1968, New York City became home to the largest co-operative housing complex in the world, Co-op City.  This installment in our series, "1968: Fifty Years Later," looks back to the opening of Co-op City and it's enduring promise, over the decades.

The vision was to build affordable housing, under New York’s Mitchell Lama Program, to lure middle-income New Yorkers to the city’s outskirts. And it worked. When it opened 50 years ago, almost all of its more than 15,000 units were sold out.

Architecture critics assailed its sterile design at the time, but many residents say it has offered them affordable housing and a tight sense of community that is mixed income and mostly black and brown.

“In my 47 years of living in my one apartment, I have come to know my fellow cooperators,” said resident Sonja Clark. “My children went to school here. I went back to school here because they have a college for seniors. There is so much to do and be in Co-op City.”

Though Co-op City lacks easy mass transit connections to Manhattan — it takes more than an hour to get to Grand Central Terminal and normally requires taking both the bus and subway — Clark said the commute is worth it.

“We have so much room. We have closet space,” she said. "The rooms are large. They're airy. We have central air."

In the early days, residents organized to fight increases in their maintenance charges and to get construction problems fixed. That resulted in a 13-month rent strike, the longest and largest in United States history, before a compromise was reached.

“We had to get involved to get the elected officials to support us. And we organized 50 bus loads to go to Albany to give us some relief,” said longtime resident Bernie Cylich, who also served as president of the Co-op board of directors.

Over 43,000 people live in Co-op City, according to the 2010 Census. But the project may have never existed if the business there before it had been successful. Before Co-op City, an amusement park called Freedomland operated on the same location for four years. It was only because the park went out of business that the state and local authorities, along with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, were able to develop the land as housing.

Today, Co-op City remains one of the most vibrant and diverse communities in the country, opening the doors to affordable housing and home ownership for hardworking New Yorkers.