In the 1950s, New York City leaders decided to demolish the San Juan Hill neighborhood – a lively mixed-race community that had long been considered a “slum”—in order to make way for the construction of the Lincoln Center complex. Of the 7,000 households displaced by the development, about 20% were Puerto Rican. The majority of San Juan Hill residents got no help from the city’s Committee on Slum Clearance (led by legendary developer Robert Moses), which had pledged to help relocate those pushed out of their homes.
This talk will provide political and social context for this important moment in New York’s redevelopment in the mid-20th century, and will also highlight the ways Puerto Rican New Yorkers responded to the failures of city leaders to provide equitable support to the struggling migrant community.