Desegregating the “Walled Town”
Liz Fox (born Elizabeth Miller, daughter of Leo and Diana Miller) was three and a half years old when her family moved to Stuyvesant Town. She lived there all her life until she married Sid Fox when she was 26 years old. During an interview, she recounted her parents experience in the fight to desegregate Stuyvesant Town.
In 1947 I was 3 1/2 when my family moved to Stuyvesant town. I lived there until I got married in 1965.
Stuyvesant was originally built because there was a tremendous housing shortage after WWII. Then Stuyvesant town was built and they gave preference to disabled vets. So they got priority. So we moved there in 1947, I was 3 ½. And at that time it was white but there was a sizeable population of Jewish and Catholic children. And we played together until the kids went to Catholic school they didn’t play with the Jewish kids anymore. And that was my first experience with anti-semitism.
My parents were very proud 1st generation Americans. My dad was very much believed that all people were equal.
Diana and Leo Miller
In 1948 my parents became involved with a group of people interested in trying to integrate Stuyvesant Town They began to have meetings to talk about what they could do. One person was a professor at City College named Professor Leo Lorch. He was about to go on sabbatical and he wanted to offer his apartment to a black family with one little boy. The family was named the Hendricks.
There’s a picture of me holding hands with the little boy, Hardine Hendricks Jr. He later died in a car accident.
The idea was that they would move into Professor Lorch’s apartment. This was totally illegal and Met Life got wind of it and they tried to stop it. The Town and Tenants Committee to End Discrimination in Stuyvesant Town picketed in front of Met Life and they started to get support from the unions and other groups. There’s a picture of the families that protested. I’ standing with my father in the middle of the group. Finally, Met Life decided to evict all of the families who were causing this problem. Well, at that point many of the families pulled out of the group, there was maybe a dozen families who were ready to put their families on the line. On the day when the evictions were supposed to happen, there was an incredible show of support from people, especially the unions. Union people surrounded Stuyvesant Town and as a result the police did not evict the tenants.
Eventually, the housing laws were changed and blacks could move in. But I don’t think there were ever many black families who moved in.
Funny thing, until the late 1980’s my parents lived there in Stuy Town, they were never given another lease. They were sort of blacklisted. They were not evicted but they lived there without a lease until my mother demanded one decades later.”
Life South of 14th St
There was actually no contact across the street. I had not sense of who lived across the street. Stuyvesant was a little oasis. There were lots of parks. I had a lot of friends and it was very safe. At 4 or 5 I was riding the elevator by myself to go to friends houses on different floors. You just don’t do that now. I only had positive memories of growing up there. I went to Seward Park High School and met some girls who lived below 14th Street. And they were not doing as well as my family even though we were lower middle class.