This month in real estate history

1971: Women’s lib triumphs in case against landlord

A state judge rejected an attempt by an Upper Manhattan landlord to evict an unmarried female tenant because of her sexual activity in the building, 42 years ago this month.

The case — which involved a rent-regulated unit — was considered to be the first test case of its kind in New York State and came in the midst of the women’s liberation movement.

A ruling in favor of the landlord could have had far-reaching, negative ramifications for female tenants and strengthened the hand of property owners against renters.

The decision was handed down as women were calling for greater personal, political and sexual freedom, and came the same month as the groundbreaking feminist magazine Ms. published its first issue, which ran as an insert in New York magazine.

The landlord, who was identified only as a physician that lived in the building, testified that he was offended by the 20-something woman’s “illicit relations” with her boyfriend.

The State Supreme Court Justice wrote in his ruling that “The question for decision is whether chastity is a requisite to maintenance of a landlord-tenant relationship.”

While he noted there was evidence to support the landlord’s argument that the couple was having sex out of wedlock, he said that the activity was not a reason to evict her, “given the ethical standards of the day,” the New York Times reported.

1947: Zeckendorf’s Flushing “Dream City” dies

Zeckendorf and others looking at a Dream City model

A visionary plan advocated by the colorful William Zeckendorf Sr. to convert a large swath of downtown Flushing, Queens, into a modern $50 million shopping-and-theater complex was dashed 66 years ago this month.

The city effectively killed Zeckendorf’s project, known as Dream City, by refusing to invoke eminent domain to help Zeckendorf get his hands on the property he needed to move forward.

Zeckendorf — president of the real estate company Webb & Knapp — had proposed the project, which was to be privately financed, on 20 acres bounded by 38th Avenue, Barclay Avenue, and Main and Bowne streets.

At the time, the land was occupied by smaller properties, roughly 90 percent of which were owned by the Astor estate. Zeckendorf, whose grandsons Williams Lie and Arthur are now high-profile developers in the city, was looking to get in on the post-World War II boom taking place in Queens and Long Island.

The plan was hailed in a Long Island City paper as “the world’s largest and most beautiful shopping center.”

But to complete the project, the developers needed to get ahold of the properties by either buying out the owners or having the city condemn them through eminent domain, which would pave the way for Zeckendorf to buy them at a public auction. But the city balked and the project never got built.

1922: Traffic proposal calls for ‘super-streets’

John Harriss at right

A radical plan to ease vehicular and pedestrian travel in Manhattan — which included demolishing a dozen or more full city blocks — was proposed 91 years ago this month.

The plan would have created four “super-streets” running from the East to Hudson rivers, between 59th and Chambers streets.

The highways would each be 360 feet wide — more than double Manhattan’s widest major street, Park Avenue, which is 140 feet wide in most places.

John Harriss, a high-ranking police official, today remembered for installing the city’s first traffic signal towers, estimated it would cost about $50 million (roughly $700 million in today’s dollars) to acquire the land for the first such road, a figure some said seemed low. The plan was designed to prepare for a population that some projected would more than double from 6 million in the mid-1920s to 16 million by 1950. Harriss predicted it would hit 25 million in 2022.

His wide-street plans were met with skepticism and were never implemented.