The tenant movement lost one of its most effective, brilliant, dedicated, and dynamic fighters April 29, when Janet Freeman, called variously “the Jane Jacobs of our time,” “the Mahatma Gandhi of the Lower East Side,” and “the angel of Elizabeth Street,” died at the age of 60.
She was a community organizer and tenant advocate, a founder of the
Croman Tenants Association, the Coalition to Protect Public Housing and
Section 8, and of Co-op Watch, to prevent evictions through phony
conversions. She started campaigns to organize Extell tenants and Shaoul
tenants, and efforts against phony demolitions and landlord harassment.
As lead organizer for the Neighborhood Coalition to Fight Proliferation
of Bars, she defended the local Little Italy/Chinatown neighborhood’s
character, fighting against invasive cabarets and upscale nightlife.
“I can’t see anyone filling her shoes,” says Steve Herrick, head of the
Cooper Square Committee, an East Village housing advocacy organization.
Freeman was widely admired among tenant
advocates for an unusual mix of impressive qualities: her intellect and
insight, her personal dedication to ordinary people, her passion for
their rights, and the depth, breadth, thoroughness, and accuracy of her
research. She employed these in an unbroken series of actions and
campaigns for the last 22 years. Protective of her independence and
integrity, and averse to bureaucracy, she almost always worked as a
volunteer, even refusing paid positions for the same things she did
freely.
In 1989,
Freeman learned about the death of
Lincoln Swados, a disabled tenant who died after his landlord, as part
of a co-op conversion, built a construction shed around his apartment,
effectively blocking his access to the street. She became a founding
member of the Coalition for Justice for Lincoln Swados. Her work there
led to the creation in 1990 of Lower East Side Co-op Watch, where she
organized tenants in buildings undergoing conversion and created a
database to analyze and track co-op conversions—both to challenge them
individually and to raise the issue to the public, the media, and
elected officials. Her campaign included demonstrations, speak-outs, and
workshops, collaborating with the state attorney general’s office and
Met Council.
Through the mid-1990s she counseled tenants on their legal rights as a
Met Council tenant advisor. Strongly believing that tenants in private
and public housing should work together in one unified movement,
Freeman
joined the East Village activist organization the Coalition for a
District Alternative (CoDA) and Margarita Lopez’s campaigns for district
leader and later the City Council, working door-to-door registering
voters in the neighborhood’s housing projects. In 1996, in response to a
federal bill to privatize the projects, she joined with public-housing
activists to create the Lower East Side Coalition to Save Public Housing
& Section 8, reaching out to tenants door-to-door; creating
postcard and call-in campaigns; holding meetings, rallies, and forums
several times each week; and coordinating the local effort with national
organizing.
In 1997, when then-state Senate majority leader Joseph Bruno announced his intention to eliminate rent regulations,
Freeman
teamed up with Valerio Orselli, head of Cooper Square Mutual Housing,
to mobilize and educate tenants. Despite opposition from then-City
Councilmember Antonio Pagan, their forum attracted so many people that
the speakers had to be brought out into the street to address those who
could not fit into the hall.
In 2000, after over a decade of volunteer work,
Freeman
accepted a part-time position with the City-Wide Task Force for Housing
Court, providing legal information for pro se tenants, tenants appearing in court
without the benefit of an attorney. She was also the tenant
representative for a pro se tenant coalition involved in an HP action,
where she set a precedent by successfully arguing in court—both in
written briefs and oral arguments—that the legal stipulations that
define Housing Court settlements should require that the owner correct
outstanding Department of Buildings and Environmental Control Board
violations.
As real-estate values rose on the Lower East Side and in Little Italy and Chinatown,
Freeman
organized tenants threatened by aggressive landlord-developers. She
founded the Coalition of Tenants in Croman-Owned Buildings, organized
tenants in Extell-owned buildings, and worked with tenants in Shaoul
buildings. She also fought the commercial transformation of the
neighborhood, leading the fight against the proliferation of bars and
nightlife in and around Little Italy and Chinatown.
Preferring to help others to stand and speak for themselves,
Freeman did not promote herself. Nevertheless, her legacy is long. “If it weren’t for
Janet, I wouldn’t be here,” says Damaris Reyes, now executive director of Good Old Lower East Side, whom
Freeman brought into the movement. “She never acted like a teacher. She treated me as a friend.”
Steve Herrick observed her enthusiasm for people and
ability to connect with them. “When we went door-to-door to organize
tenants, Janet talked to them, advised them and
was always interested in their stories,” he remembers. “Sometimes I’d
have to drag her out of the building, otherwise we wouldn’t get anything
done. I wouldn’t ask her for small or routine tasks, because she threw
herself so thoroughly into every effort.” He also notes her keen
intelligence. “Janet had this ability to
perceive the big picture, connecting harassment to speculation and
lenders. When Extell bought seventeen parcels in the Lower East Side, Janet
was the one who drew the connection with the Carlyle Group [a
private-equity fund that was one of the nation’s largest defense
contractors, with ties to the Bush and bin Laden families].”
Freeman’s dedication to people resonated with
all those who worked with her. Gina Cuevas, Manhattan borough
coordinator of the City-Wide Task Force, remembers her “working after
hours, helping clients, researching. She was unbelievable. I’ve never
seen anyone work so hard and so dedicated. And she knew so much.”
Her character and her activism shared a consistent personal moral
underpinning, according to Harriet Putterman, a founder of CoDA. “She
was an egalitarian person, as interested in the process as the outcome,”
always concerned “that tenants who weren't ‘leaders’ be valued and
fully included in the activity or campaign.” “She could not tolerate or stand by while the innocent
were being trampled or their rights being abused,” says Toni Craddock, a
longtime friend and neighbor.
Her human motives were matched with an unusually high standard of research. “With
Janet
there was no room for error,” recalls Wasim Lone, director of housing
services at GOLES. “No stone was left unturned, no detail ignored. She
researched—DHCR, HPD, DOB, the rent rolls. She was a true professional,
only motivated to do the right thing and get it done well.”
“She
could catch anything dishonest, disingenuous, or inaccurate,” adds
Robin Goldberg, who worked with her on the local nightlife problem, “Her
work was fact-based.” “You would be hard pressed to go up against her,” notes Craddock. Pat Adams, who worked with
Freeman on many
housing campaigns, emphasizes her gifts, “She gave people tools, she
gave them confidence, and she always gave other people credit.” “She gave direction to the neighborhood,” adds Georgette Fleischer,
founder of Friends of Petrosino Square, who remembers her work on
invasive bars.
The constant pressure from the real-estate industry on neighborhood residents exacted a toll on
Freeman’s
perseverance. “She helped many, many tenants in Little Italy and
Chinatown,” Rosie Wong, senior housing advocate at University
Settlement, recounts. “She was enthusiastic and committed, but also she
was frustrated by all the changes she saw around her and what was
happening in the city.”
A native New Yorker who grew up in Stuyvesant Town,
Freeman’s
roots in the neighborhood were deep. She moved to her first apartment,
on Elizabeth Street between Kenmare and Spring, at the age of 17, and
she remained on the block for 43 years. For most of that time, she lived
in a ground-floor residential storefront distinguished by its
uncompromisingly authentic exterior that gave no quarter to
gentrification or the commercial upscaling of the neighborhood. Her
concern for the street began with an effort to line it with trees,
decades before real-estate and nightlife speculators arrived.
Like her apartment,
Freeman was staunchly
authentic. People rarely encountered her without her bicycle, her
cigarettes, and her coffee, along with her insight, passion, humor, and
enthusiasm for people. “She was the real deal,” says Goldberg. “She really got life.”
[This article was originally published in Met Council's monthly housing journal Tenant/Inquilino, July/August 2011, edited by Steve Wishnia. My thanks for Steve's always expert edits and to Val Orselli who clarified the broad chronology. And damnit, I miss Janet.]
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