The Great Rent Wars

August 26, 2013
Fogelson (Downtown: Its Rise and Fall, 1880–1930), a professor of urban studies and history at MIT, turns his attention to the rise and demise of “emergency rent laws” following WWI, during the interwar housing shortage, and in doing so sheds light on the history of rent control in New York. The book features a large and varied cast of characters: “rapacious landlords,” and rarer, “highly compassionate” ones, along with various “real estate interests”; local, state, and national politicians; municipal, state, appellate, and Supreme Court justices; police and city marshals; and, of course, tenants—wealthy, middle class, working class, and poverty stricken. In addition to Dickensian legal wrangling, the complexities in which the interested parties find themselves embroiled include ideological controversies about public housing and “reasonable rent,” among many others. Threaded throughout are details about successful and unsuccessful rent-strike actions. Fogelson’s book is chock-full of information and data, but his prolixity, copious quotations from letters and newspaper articles, redundancies, and digressions make for tedious reading. However, his thorough research and meticulous documentation will be a gold mine for fellow urban historians. Agent: Ike Williams, Kneerim & Williams.