Cooper Square Committee

1959 - present

During its early years, the organization came together as a community to stop the bulldozers from demolishing buildings in the Lower East Side and they challenged Robert Moses, an urban planner and NY public official, to prevent the displacement of hundreds of residents and businesses in that area (Cooper Square, Mission & History, 2023). The organization created a Community Plan for Cooper Square to pressure City officials to follow the demands of residents and businesses in the area on how they would like the land to be redeveloped. In 1970, City Officials went forward with the Alternate Plan for Cooper Square which "called for staged development, limited relocation, and no displacement of current residents" (Cooper Square, Mission & History, 2023). This organization's population consists of working-class tenants in the Lower East Side. In 1991, the Cooper Square Committee created the Mutual Housing Association which is a multi-cooperative consisting of 21 buildings, 328 low-income buildings for housing, and 22 storefronts. Through this organization, low-income housing units were made for the community, and 146 low-income apartments were developed on Stanton Street in 1984. Cooper Square Committee fought for 150 units to be built for senior housing on Bowery and East 5th Street in 1985. Cooper Square Committee formed the Cooper Square Mutual Housing Association in 1991 and successfully won an agreement with Mayor Dinkins' administration "to turn over 20 city-owned tenement buildings in the Cooper Square Urban Renewal Area (CSURA) to non-profit management as low-income housing" (Cooper Square, Mission & History, 2023).