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Manhattan Snaps: Tenant rally in Tompkins Square Park in 1980

(Villager file photo)

This photo, from the Nov. 13, 1980 issue of The Villager, shows a tenant rally in Tompkins Square Park. The photo was part of a story about tenant activists in Loisaida fearful that large-scale real estate speculation in the area would force rents up and local residents out. Brent Sharman, an organizer with the group Adopt-A-Building who is on the left in the photo, told The Villager, “Gentrification is now the strongest trend, stronger than abandonment, as a destroyer of low-income housing.”

-Gabe Herman