ABSTRACT
In early 1961, Father Henry Browne, a priest working on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, wrote to a prominent planning consultant asking how he could explain the city’s West Side urban renewal plan to his working-class Puerto Rican parishioners, many of whom were facing displacement. The city was planning for new schools, safer streets, and modern, low- and moderate-income housing for this aging neighborhood of overcrowded brownstones. Would the renewal plan help residents, as promised? Browne supported the city’s goals—indeed, he had actively supported the West Side Urban Renewal Plan throughout the early planning process—but he was worried that the plan did not provide for the return of every family that would be displaced. Judging from the extent of redevelopment that was planned, thousands of residents would need to move. Even those who were lucky enough to secure new housing in the neighborhood faced a long waiting period before they could return. Many worried they would be forced to relocate to the outer boroughs, far from family. Was it true, as rumor had it, that Puerto Ricans were being pushed from the neighborhood to make room for new development? 1
