Director Richard Plunz on WNYC

On October 2, 2017, UDL Director Richard Plunz was ‘on the air’ with Brian Lehrer and David Favaloro of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum to kick off the Brian Lehrer Show’s new series, ‘A People’s Guide to Power: Real Estate Edition’.

In the segment, Plunz, Favaloro, and Lehrer discuss the time in the early 20th century when tenements started to be replaced by public housing in New York City.

On his part, Plunz considers how building standards changed at the turn of the 20th century, including the political drivers that contributed to reform; talks about how then New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia navigated the changing housing landscape in his city; shares which public housing is considered the best in the city; and discusses the relationship between public housing and the New Deal.

Listen to the segment, ‘The Tenement Era and the Dawn of Public Housing’.

And click here to listen to Plunz’s previous appearance on the Brian Lehrer Show (11/17/2016) for a discussion of his book, A History of Housing in New York City. (Columbia University Press; revised edition, 2016).