Postcard Thursday: Trinity's Real Estate Empire

looking up Wall Street at Trinity Church

Yesterday, James had a feature in Curbed NY about the history of Trinity Church's real estate holdings in Lower Manhattan. By the end of the nineteenth century, Trinity had become the second-largest land owners in New York City, but much of what they owned in the area now know as Tribeca was actually in terrible shape. Trinity was called out by the local press as one of the city's biggest slumlords and it became a huge scandal.

(This area has been in the news recently because Disney is going to be building a new headquarters on some of Trinity's land in what was once the center of this slum.)

The whole story is fascinating:

https://ny.curbed.com/2018/8/22/17764064/trinity-church-real-estate-history-hudson-square.

an artist's rendition of what the original Trinity looked like ca. 1698

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Photo Thursday: Hans Haacke and the East Village

Installation view of America Is Hard to See (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, May 1— September 27, 2015): Hans Haacke, Shapolsky, et al. Manhattan Real Estate Holdings, a Real Estate Holdings, a Real-Time Social System, as of May 1 1971, 1971, (2007.148a-gg). Photography by Ronald Amstutz.

In 1971, conceptual artist Hans Haacke produced one of his most enduring works, Shapolsky, et al. Manhattan Real Estate Holdings, a Real Estate Holdings, a Real-Time Social System, as of May 1 1971, a visual critique of Manhattan slumlord Harry Shapolsky.

This summer, James decided to track down the buildings Haacke had photographed to see how the East Village (the main area on which he focused) had changed in the past four decades. The result is "The Artist and the Slumlord: A Photographer's 1970s Quest to Unmask an NYC Real Estate Family," an essay for Curbed's national site that compares buildings in the neighborhood then and now.

538-40 East 11th Street today. Photo by Will Femia.

 Read the full story at http://curbed.com/archives/2015/09/02/hans-haacke-photography-slumlord.php

We'd love to know your thoughts! Comment on the story itself or here on the blog.

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