Legendary Lower East Side activist Frances Goldin talked at St. Mark’s Bookshop about the article on her by Chris Brandt in “Jews: A People’s History of The Lower East Side,” edited by Clayton Patterson and Dr. Mareleyn Schneider. Goldin concentrated on her years fighting to preserve affordable housing in the Cooper Square Urban Renewal Area — a swath of buildings designated in the 1950s for “slum clearance” by Planning Czar Robert Moses, centered around the Bowery and Second Ave. on Houston St. and stretching several blocks north and south. Moses wanted to rebuild the area with another Stuyvesant Town. More than 50 years later, thanks to the efforts of Goldin and her fellow housing activists, people in the tenements saved from demolition now finally own their apartments, which will remain affordable in perpetuity.
