History
By 1929, the site later by Knickerbocker Village was home to a predominantly Italian immigrant community. Known as the "Lung Block," at the turn of the twentieth century, the neighborhood became the focus of public-health and housing reform campaigns. Journalist Ernest Poole's 1903 exposé, The Plague in Its Stronghold, helped establish its reputation as one of New York City's most notorious slums, depicting its overcrowded tenements as centers of tuberculosis. Subsequent scholarship has concluded that these representations combined genuine concerns about housing and public health with class prejudice and anti-immigrant sentiment. By 1908, renovations had brought the tenements into compliance with existing housing regulations, which, alongside improvements in sanitation and public-health measures led declining tuberculosis rates. The city's Tenement House Department itself declared the designation "Lung Block" a misnomer in its 1908 annual report.
During the late 1920s and early 1930s, real estate developer Fred F. French acquired much of the area as part of a larger plan to replace Lower East Side tenements with middle-class housing for Wall Street workers. Stefano Morello and Kerri Culhane have argued that French deliberately revived the Lung Block's decades-old reputation as a tuberculosis-ridden slum to justify its demolition and secure federal financing for redevelopment. In 1932, he reprinted housing reformer Louis Heaton Pink's 1907 pamphlet Old Tenements and the New Law, having underlined its references to the Lung Block, to strengthen the case for clearance. French also commissioned photographs depicting the neighborhood's allegedly shocking conditions, although many of the resulting images showed ordinary scenes of everyday life in a predominantly immigrant neighborhood.
In 1933, French secured financing from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to build Knickerbocker Village, one of the first federally financed apartment developments in the United States. Demolition of the Lung Block began in October 1933, and the new apartment complex opened in 1934.
Although promoted as low-cost housing, the development's rents averaged approximately $12.50 per room, compared with approximately $5 per room in the demolished tenements, placing the apartments beyond the means of most former residents.
The redevelopment displaced much of the neighborhood's Italian immigrant community and provided 1,590 small apartments primarily to middle-income families. A study conducted by the Fred L. Lavanburg Foundation and Hamilton House of 386 displaced families found that 379 wished to move into Knickerbocker Village, but only three planned to do so because of the higher rents. Of those surveyed, 319 families, or approximately 83 percent, continued to live in older tenements following their displacement. Instead of rehousing the original residents of the former Lung Block, the development primarily accommodated a more affluent population. The redevelopment has later been characterized as an early example of gentrification in Manhattan.
In the post-World War II period, the complex became known for its tenant organizing activities and disputes with management, which contributed to the development of landlord–tenant protections and rent-control regulations.
In 1977, Fred F. French Investing Co., Inc. sold its controlling interest in Knickerbocker Village, Inc. to Cherry Green Property Corporation, which subsequently made an offer to acquire the remaining outstanding shares.
21st century
The property suffered severe damage from Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and ultimately received significant funds from the city's "Build it Back" program. The complex became one of the first affordable housing complexes with facial recognition technology.
A tax break in 2019 put an end to a five year fight to prevent a significant rent increase that would have made the property unaffordable to most tenants.
In the 2024 presidential election, Democratic candidate Kamala Harris carried New York City's Borough of Manhattan by 81% and the city itself by 68%, but the western part of Knickerbocker Village handed Donald Trump a 16 vote margin victory out of roughly 500 votes cast. The difference was 251 for Trump and 235 for Harris, which resulted in Trump's only precinct victory in Manhattan out of any of his three presidential runs.
