Skip to Main Content
NYC Civil Rights History Project Logo
  • About
  • Gallery
  • Timeline
  • Topics
  • Key Concepts
  • Teaching Resources
  • Project History
  • News and Events
  • Search
The Role of the School in a Housing Program for the Community (Text and image description)

The Role of the School in a Housing Program for the Community (Text and image description)

A map of Manhattan is overlaid with an organizational chart for Benjamin Franklin High School Community Advisory Council.

Organizational chart of School-Community Committees represented by 1. Students, (undergraduates and alumni) 2. Faculty 3. Parents and 4. Community Representatives.

Chart includes a committee on racial cooperation, a committee on citizenship, a committee on adult education, a committee on leadership, a housing committee, and a health committee.

Activities of the school housing committee

  1. Housing exhibits and films in school (for students and public).

  2. Discussions in classrooms and writing of compositions on housing.

  3. Prize essay contest on housing.

  4. Scale modeling of their own block by neighborhood children at the Friends and Neighbors Club of the Benjamin Franklin hHgh School.

  5. Building of model village by students in art department class.

  6. Painting of pictures and posters on housing by art department, students.

  7. Projection of program for better housing in east Harlem.

  8. Housing questionnaire for students of the school (study of students’ reaction to housing conditions).

  9. Study of local land values and use of land.

  10. Housing rallies in school.

  11. Housing forums with authoritative speakers.

  12. Sponsorship and participation of faculty and students in radio broadcasts on housing.

  13. Community gardens, beautification of neighborhood (“The block beautiful”).

Another organization with a separate chart, the Harlem Legislative Conference includes a committee on housing. Together, the Harlem Legislative Conference housing committee and Benjamin Franklin High School housing committee share a joint committee on housing.

Joint Housing Committee for the Realization of a Low Rent Housing Project on East River Drive

Activities of the Joint Committee

  1. Mass meetings of East Harlem residents. Adoption of resolutions.

  2. Appointment of a continuance committee to confer with the authorities on a housing unit for East Harlem.

  3. Community signatures to housing petitions, establishment of petition signing stations.

  4. Publicity (press pamphlets, buttons, et.)

  5. Housing parade and mass meeting March 22nd, 1939.

  6. Establishment of information service on housing. Low rent housing unit known as East River Houses allocated to East Harlem. Appropriation - $7,390,000. Accommodations for over 1300 families.

  7. Victory parade and mass meeting, October 15th, 1939 to celebrate securing of unit.

  8. Initiation of course on community planning and housing and adult school of the Benj. Franklin H.S.

  9. Groundbreaking ceremonies for East River Houses, March 2nd, 1940.

  10. applications for tenancy (distribution of blanks, advisement on procedures). East Harlem housing committee recognized as official agency by local and national housing authorities.

  11. 58th meeting of the House Committee held.

  12. Housing Committee inaugurates campaign for East Harlem municipal hospital.

Seal with an image of an apartment building at the center. Text reads: “East Harlem needs low rent housing”

Prepared by the school community research bureau of the Benjamin Franklin High School in New York city.

Leonard Covello, Principal

Map highlights other locations throughout New York city: The Works Progress Administration (WPA), Mayor’s Planning Committee, American Legion, Parents Association, Neighborhood Executive Committee, Ben Franklin Alumni Association, and East Harlem Teachers’ Union.