[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 11] [Extensions of Remarks] [Pages 15385-15386] [From the U.S. 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 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. [[Page 15386]] 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. ____________________