Bronx - Photo #667

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Entrance to the United Workers Cooperative "Coops" on Bronx Park East between Allerton and Arnow Avenues, a Depression-era Communist/Socialist/Anarchist workers' commune. The Coops were built in the late 1920s as a community for immigrant garment workers, who pooled their life savings to build them; besides apartments it had courtyards, gardens, a restaurant, gym, youth clubs, grocery store, school, day care center, music room, a room for parties and events, and apartments with lots of air and sunlight. It was one of the first cooperatively owned apartment complexes and also one of the first examples of racially integrated housing in New York City. The Cooperative gradually succumbed to economic pressure over the years and now the complex is regular rental properties. A similar Bronx workers cooperative from the same era, the Amalgamated Houses, still exists. Read about the Coops HERE and HERE. There's a film about the Coops, At Home in Utopia; you can find some excerpts and trailers on Youtube.