The southeast corner of E. Second St. and Avenue A was co-named for the late housing activist Mary Spink on Sat., Dec. 2. For nearly 20 years, Spink was the executive director of the Lower East Side People’s Mutual Housing Association. She was also an appointed member of Community Board 3, a member of the Seward Park Area Coalition and a board member of the Lower East Side People’s Federal Credit Union, the Lower Eastside Girls Club and the East Village Community Coalition.
Spink transcended difficult beginnings and a checkered past to rise to become executive director of the Lower East Side People’s M.H.A., which today owns and runs 32 low-income buildings in the East Village and Lower East Side, as well as managing eight low-income, tenant-owned, Housing Development Fund Corporation buildings.
She left behind a past of abuse and reform school in Troy, N.Y., and came to the Lower East Side from the Albany region in her late teens. The neighborhood then was teeming with drugs, and Spink soon got hooked. But she eventually kicked drugs and became a leading light of the community.
Speakers at Saturday’s co-naming event included Councilmember Rosie Mendez, former Councilmember Margarita Lopez, City Comptroller Scott Stringer, state Senator-elect Brian Kavanagh, C.B. 3 District Manager Susan Stetzer, Assembly candidate Harvey Epstein, former C.B. 3 Chairperson Lisa Kaplan, C.B. 3 Vice Chairperson Herman Hewitt and Mike Schweinsburg, vice president of 504 Democratic Club.
