[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 96 (Thursday, July 1, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1481-E1482]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 IN RECOGNITION OF THE DEDICATION OF THE CARL MACKLEY APARTMENT COMPLEX

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. ROBERT A. BORSKI

                            of pennsylvania

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, July 1, 1999

  Mr. BORSKI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the official 
dedication of the Carl Mackley Apartments. I was proud to join the 
people of Philadelphia and AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney to 
christen the development.
  The Carl Mackley Apartments opened in 1935 and were developed by the 
Philadelphia based American Federation of Hosiery Workers. The 
development was the first to be funded by President Franklin D. 
Roosevelt's Public Works Administration, and was a unique example of 
union-sponsored housing. Despite its focus on providing low-rent 
housing, the complex had many amenities, including a nursery school, 
pool, bakery, candy shop, and barber and tailor. Its design fostered a 
community spirit and the residents contributed to the complex and each 
others lives.
  After two decades of neglect the complex was suffering from decay and 
became a source of blight in the neighborhood. In 1998 Canus Corp. of 
Manayunk and Altman General Corp. of Glenside took over the buildings 
and did a gut renovation, completely rehabilitating the complex. Half 
of the apartments are government subsidized and the others are reserved 
for low-income families, they expect them to be fully occupied by the 
end of July.
  Mr. Speaker, I would especially like to recognize the exceptional 
work of a member of my staff, Rosemary Farnon. As a former resident of 
the complex, Rosemary had a great interest in its revival. Through her 
role as President of the Juniata Park Civic Association, Rosemary 
worked with the developers and the community to facilitate dialog 
between the two parties. She made sure that the voices of local 
residents were heard, and that they were informed about the 
rehabilitation of the community and the opportunities that it would 
offer. I

[[Page E1482]]

commend her hard work and dedication to the neighborhood, and I am 
proud to have her as a member of my staff.
  The Carl Mackley Apartments are a great example of community spirit 
and cooperation. The change in the neighborhood has been dramatic, and 
it has provided a place to live for people that need temporary 
assistance as well as those working families who need affordable 
housing. After being placed on the National Register of Historical 
Places and undergoing a $20 million renovation, the buildings were 
dedicated on Monday. I was extremely proud to be a part of the 
dedication ceremony and look forward to seeing Carl Mackleys' precedent 
of community spirit continue on. I would also like to insert for the 
Record an article from the Philadelphia Inquirer regarding this 
historical landmark.

            [From the Philadelphia Inquirer, June 25, 1999]

                           (By Julie Stoiber)

       In January 1935, when the Carl Mackley Houses opened, 
     thousands of people converged on Juniata Park to tour the new 
     apartment complex.
       The four handsome, low-rise buildings took up a full city 
     block at M and Bristol Streets, and were separated by greens 
     and walkways that lent a campus-like air.
       Considering the amenities the Mackley apartments offered in 
     Depression-era America, it was no wonder there was a waiting 
     list. Residents of the 284 units could take a dip in the 
     apartment's in-ground swimming pool and clean their clothes 
     in rooftop laundries equipped with electric washers. ``From 
     our point of view, it was an ideal situation,'' said William 
     Rafsky, a resident from 1946 to 1954.
       One other thing made it stand out: It was affordable.
       Contrary to what its amenities would suggest, Carl Mackley 
     was designed for the working-class. Its owner and developer 
     was the American Federation of Hosiery Workers, a 
     Philadelphia-based union that saw low-rent apartments as a 
     way to help the many hosiery workers who were losing their 
     jobs and homes.
       This rare example of union-sponsored housing also had the 
     distinction of being the first low-rent development funded by 
     President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Public Works 
     Administration. Six decades later, the Carl Mackley complex 
     is again in the spotlight. After years of private ownership 
     and neglect, the complex, which is on the National Register 
     of Historic Places, has undergone a $20 million renovation 
     and on Monday will be rededicated.
       Again, a labor union is playing a major role. Again, the 
     butterscotch-brick buildings will be home to those in need of 
     affordable housing. And although the pool is gone and the 
     airy laundries are sealed, the community building, the pool 
     is gone and the airy laundries are sealed, the community 
     building, where residents once gathered to watch movies, 
     take classes and participate in the management of the 
     complex, will again be a center of activity.
       ``This was exciting work, about as good as it gets,'' said 
     Noel Eisenstat, head of the Philadelphia Redevelopment 
     Authority, which has been helping to engineer the apartment's 
     revival for more than five years--wresting the property from 
     the owner through HUD foreclosure and then bankruptcy, 
     selecting a private developer and courting the AFL-CIO's 
     Housing Investment Trust, which loaned more than $26 million 
     in union pension funds for construction and rent subsidies.
       ``The alternative was a sheriff's sale,'' Eisenstat said, 
     ``where they sell it to a developer, but without the 
     resources to develop it.''
       The apartment building's place in history was a prime 
     motivator for both Eisenstat and Stephen Coyle, head of the 
     Housing Investment Trust, but there was another force at 
     work: The once-esteemed complex--praised by the New Deal 
     president himself--was, in its decayed state, dragging down 
     the stable rowhouse neighborhood that had grown up around it.
       ``Every once in a while a project comes by that gives you 
     that extra sense of purpose and meaning,'' Coyle said. 
     ``Everyone wanted this to happen.''
       ``Of all the things we've done, this will stand out,'' he 
     said. ``It rekindled people's interest in affordable housing. 
     There's a lore about this project.''
       It was in 1933 that John Edelman, secretary of the hosiery 
     union, became interested in easing the housing crisis for 
     union members.
       ``They were a very progressive group,'' said Rafsky, who 
     was a union official before joining city government.
       Edelman formed a core of supporters who shared his vision, 
     including Oskar Stonorov and Alfred Kastner, two emigre 
     architects with experience in designing European worker-style 
     housing, and William Jeanes, a wealthy Quaker and well-known 
     champion of low-cost housing who was the complex's first 
     manager.
       Philadelphia Mayor Hampton Moore branded the idea 
     communistic and tried to block its construction. Edelman 
     prevailed.
       The buildings Stonorov and Kastner designed were early 
     American examples of the sleek, unadorned International Style 
     of architecture (the PSFS tower at 12th and Market Streets is 
     another). The complex was called ``daringly contemporary'' 
     and although it was not universally acclaimed, it was 
     featured in The Architectural Record.
       To add to the allure, the development was named for a local 
     labor hero, Carl Mackley, a 22-year-old hosiery worker from 
     Kensington who was shot to death by non-union workers during 
     a strike in 1930 and whose funeral in McPherson Square, 
     according to news reports, attracted 25,000 people.
       The apartments were tiny, in part to foster community 
     spirit by pushing people into the common areas. Rafsky 
     remembers that in warm weather, people would drag their beach 
     chairs out to the lawns. With a nursery school, library, 
     grocery store, candy shop, bakery, barber and tailor on site, 
     residents had many of life's necessities at hand.
       A one-bedroom apartment rented for $22.50 a month. Hosiery 
     workers lived in many of the units, but the complex was also 
     open to others. In the late 1960s, with the hosiery union in 
     decline, the Carl Mackley complex was sold.
       It became the Greenway Court Apartments. A botched roofing 
     job in the 1980s created a serious mildew problem in the 
     complex. Occupancy declined, rents rose and the last owner's 
     finances crashed.
       Rosemary Farnon, a 20-year resident of Juniata Park and 
     head of its civic association, remembers how distraught 
     neighbors were as they watched the complex deteriorate 
     through the '80s and early '90s.
       Trash piled up on balconies, laundry was draped over 
     railings, screens fell out and weren't replaced, there were 
     bedsheets instead of curtains in some of the windows, and it 
     seemed the police were always responding to disturbances 
     there.
       On several occasions, Farnon remembered, tenants blocked 
     traffic to get the landlord's attention when their heat went 
     off in winter.
       ``It was a grand place, and it really fell into deplorable 
     condition,'' said Farnon, who lived in the complex in the 
     late '70s and now owns a home in the neighborhood. ``The last 
     straw was they had a boiler explosion there and things really 
     seemed to move forward.''
       In February 1998, neighbors watched with interest as the 
     new owners--the Canus Corp of Manayunk and Altman General 
     Corp. of Glenside--began the renovation, relocating tenants 
     as one building was finished and another begun.
       ``We did what we call a gut-rehab,'' said Susan 
     Rabinovitch, president of Canus. ``We knocked things down and 
     made things bigger.''
       The number of apartments was reduced from 284 to 184. The 
     old units, Rabinovitch said, ``were functionally obsolete'' 
     because of their small size and lack of closet space. ``In 
     the '30s, people lived very differently.''
       Three-bedroom apartments used to be 675 square feet. Now, 
     the smallest apartment in the complex is 721 square feet, the 
     largest 1,200 square feet.
       ``I lived in a three-bedroom that now is a one-bedroom,'' 
     said Patricia Harris, a former resident of the complex and 
     its manager for the last six years.
       She recalled the old days: ``Forget closet space, forget 
     even putting a bureau in your bedroom.''
       Half the units in the complex are government-subsidized, 
     and all of those are taken, Harris said. The rest are 
     reserved for people of low to moderate income; a family of 
     four, for example, can't have household income over $33,360.
       ``We're expecting to be fully occupied by the end of 
     July,'' Harris said.
       The change in the neighborhood is dramatic, said Farnon. 
     ``You know how when you get dressed up you feel good? That's 
     how I see the Mackley.''
       On Monday, at the dedication, AFL-CIO President John J. 
     Sweeney will speak, and the development will be officially 
     christened Carl Mackley Apartments.
       Once the complex is fully occupied, Farnon plans to go in 
     and encourage residents to organize a community association.
       A spirit of community, she said, is the best way to ensure 
     that the bad part of the complex's intriguing history does 
     not repeat itself.

     

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