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Amsterdam Houses Celebrates 60th Anniversary
07/30/2007 09:17 AM
By:
NY1 News
An Upper West Side public housing complex celebrated its 60th anniversary Sunday.
Residents and community leaders gathered to honor the Amsterdam Houses. It opened in 1947 as one of the first public housing developments in the city.
"People coming together — all ethnicities black, white, Jewish, Greek, Italian, Spanish — and we all came together in the early Î40s, and we are all here 60 years later," said Harold Thomas of the Amsterdam Reunion Organization.
“It really is an extended family. It’s what really is the best of New York,” said Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. “Folks here who have dealt with gentrification pressures, displacement in the surrounding neighborhood, now come together to celebrate that they have stayed together all these years, and it's very exciting."
The 60-year history of the Amsterdam Houses is the subject of a new book and history exhibit at the American Bible Society.
The community recently applied for landmark status.
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