Fall 2004 Edition          

Radburn History:  Part 4 (Bankruptcy)   This is the final chapter in Evelyn McHugh's four-part series on the history of Radburn.    See Part 1 (Planning the Perfect Community), Part 2 (Construction Begins), and Part 3 (Real Estate Market Collapses).     The real estate bubble had burst. Radburn was built for those that wanted the pleasures of the countryside while working in the city, but the desirability of being a commuter to the city now came with a cost.  Effective in 1933, those who worked in New York but did not live there were subject to a new tax on their earnings as the city tried to find new sources of revenue. In March of 1933, the federal “bank holiday” bought all this to a head. Unemployment, the increasing expenses of taxes on property and income, inflation and high interest rates caused record mortgage defaults, and, in turn, bank and business failures. The new Roosevelt administration was left to completely reconstruct the Federal Reserve System and try to get Americans back to work and money needed to sustain operations back to their employers. Meanwhile, unemployment caused a continuing drain on federal and state revenue. On April 9, 1933, 213 Radburn homeowners (out of 227 obligated under mortgages) presented City Housing Corporation with a petition. They were requesting a moratorium on amortization payments for the next three years, and a reduction in mortgage interest from 6% to 4%. Otherwise, foreclosures would mean the destruction of remaining property values as properties became vacant and, even, abandoned by those who could no longer afford 1929 interest payments on 1933 salaries. Despite the petition, no reduction was made. This left many of the homeowners at odds with the builder. The continuing mortgage defaults on Radburn properties pushed City Housing over the edge, despite frantic efforts of some of the shareholders to ease the blow by purchasing properties back from them by means of holding companies. Construction stopped. The City Housing Corporation had other problems. More than half of the homeowners at Sunnyside Gardens (the predecessor to Radburn, in Queens ) filed suit in 1936 against City Housing and all those who held shares in it, claiming that the limited profit corporation had deliberately used false information to inflate the price of homes for an under-the-table profit to shareholders. To the amusement of the press, the suit named several shareholders that had died and Mrs. Franklin Roosevelt, a shareholder from the days when she was the wife of the Governor of New York. In a battle to gain public support, the Sunnyside Garden homeowners issued engraved invitations to evictions, setting off sirens to alert the neighborhood as the sheriff’s officers knocked on the door to remove the home’s former owners. In the middle of all this, on July 9, 1936, landscape architect Henry Wright died. The fight with homeowners was a major legal expense and a further drain on the City Housing Corporation dwindling cash flow. To protect their major assets, they filed for bankruptcy protection just before the suit was formally filed, a move generated by the Sunnyside Garden's lawyer's love for tipping off the press. On October 7, 1936, all the remaining land in Fair Lawn and mortgages were transferred to Radburn, Inc., a holding company, for final dispersal. Properties owned by City Housing in the Sunnyside area were retained because of the litigation. Eventually, several lawsuits and appeals in civil court led to a settlement of the Sunnyside Gardens suits. By the time all of the litigation worked through the courts, The City Housing Corporation as a builder was no more. Over the next twenty years, plans were repeatedly announced both by City Housing and other corporations for additional homes on Radburn's property, but only a handful were ever completed. Eventually, land that had been intended for housing and railroad commuter parking around the Radburn Plaza Building was sold by Radburn, Inc. and developed for stores. Competition for these properties was intense as the Depression ended and Fair Lawn became the fastest growing suburban area in the nation. Two strip malls, including three regional supermarkets, were announced in 1940 and completed in stages through the 1950's. Anchored by the Grand Union on one side of Fair Lawn Avenue, and the A & P and Foodtown on the other side, these two developments were built in brick to reflect their neighboring buildings, but were not designed within the guidelines of Radburn. Other properties continued to be sold by Radburn, Inc. through the 1950's, mostly alongside Route 208, east of Fair Lawn Avenue. Clarence Stein, who continued his work as an active architect as he lectured on urban planning and designing garden communities died in 1975 at the age of 92. While he later went on to develop larger and more successful projects, Radburn and Sunnyside Gardens remained his legacy. Alexander Bing, along with his brother Leo, remained a player in New York area real estate for the rest of his life. His real estate partnerships continue to this day. In his later years, he became a patron of fine art, a donator to art museums, and a painter himself. Like Wright and Stein, he continued to be an active proponent of low-cost housing until his death in November 1959. The last survivor of Radburn's design team, architect Charles Ascher, died in New York City in 1980. In 1987, Haywood Properties put together a plan to build 96 condominium units on land it owned, the site of a former industrial/office park along Plaza Road that was torn down in 1985. Haywood placed a request before the borough for rezoning of their property from industrial to residential as part of their plan. The trustees of the Radburn Association then hired their own planner and development firm. Their firm proceeded to present a request to the Borough for the rezoning of the Haywood owned property, as well as Daly Field, site of three ball fields, and Archery Plaza, a soccer field, as one lot citing the need for the Trustees to have greater control over the land use. More than 500 signatures of residents in opposition to the redevelopment proposal were presented to Radburn's Trustees by June 1987. The mayor and council announced, in May 1987, that they would review the proposal, and look into the acquisition of open space funds to possibly purchase the land for the community. The redevelopment was stymied by the economic downturn of the late 1980's and the discovery of contamination on the sites from the former industrial use. The land remains vacant, facing an uncertain future, on Radburn's 75th anniversary. See Evelyn McHugh's thoughts on Radburn in Radburn:  One of the Seven Wonders of Fair Lawn.