As Mayor-Elect Mamdani Prepares to Take Office, an ‘Urban Genocide’ unfolds in New York City
FEC tenants and allies march on Hudson Yards this past weekend in opposition of NYCHA’s ongoing plans to demolish more than 2,000 low-income apartments in Chelsea. Photos/Joe Maniscalco
By Joe Maniscalco
Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani will be sworn in on Jan. 1 2026, but New York City public housing tenants currently being forced out of their homes in Chelsea want the 34-year-old Democratic Socialist to know that he has an “urban genocide” happening on his hands right now.
More than 100 public housing tenants and their supporters marched on the Hudson Yards offices of Related Companies over the weekend in an effort to “turn up the volume” on what many describe as an all-out assault on New York City’s working class unfolding as the new mayor-elect prepares to take office.
“What happens in public housing will happen everywhere. They are coming for us all—we need to be honest about that,” Elliott-Chelsea Houses Tenants Association President Renee Keitt told demonstrators rallying on the corner of W. 33rd Street and Hudson Blvd. on Nov. 8. “This isn’t just about public housing. This [rally] is not to save our homes—it’s to save everyone’s homes because what happens here will be what happens everywhere. They will use this as the model.”
The New York City Housing Authority [NYCHA] is intent on leveling the Fulton & Elliott-Chelsea Houses [FEC] located between 9th and 10th avenues on the west side of Manhattan as part of a $2 billion “public-private partnership” deal with Related Companies, developers of the massive and ultra luxurious Hudson Yards complex located nearby.
NYCHA officials insist the demolition and “redevelopment” deal with Related Companies is being pursued to address “over $900 million in mounting physical needs.” It will, they further claim, bring a “more equitable living experience for NYCHA residents in Chelsea.”
FEC tenants and their allies opposing NYCHA’s demolition plans cross 10th Avenue on Saturday.
A majority of tenants living there, however, call it nothing more than a naked land grab by a voracious group of elite profiteers who are intent on making New York City unaffordable for working class families. FEC tenants and supporters are demanding the demolition be halted and a binding vote on the project be held instead. Community Board 4 already voted down the demolition plan in September.
Outgoing Mayor Eric Adams’s administration, nevertheless, is pushing the demolition plan, calling the public-private partnership under the RAD/PACT programs an integral part of the City of New York’s new playbook for building affordable housing.
Elderly residents living in the Chelsea Addition on W. 27th Street are actively being pressured to sign relocation papers and move into other units on the FEC campuses. Some however, are determined to fight the demolition of their homes and are choosing to stay put instead.
“Every time the movers come to take away one of their friends it’s a very painful process for them,” FEC tenant advocate Ivy Wang said on Saturday. “It’s very much unlike what they had hoped their later years would look like living in the Chelsea Addition.”
FEC tenants were in court last week seeking at temporary restraining order to halt NYCHA’s march towards demolition—but Judge David B. Cohen denied that request. Both parties will be back in court again on Dec. 4.
Elliott-Chelsea Houses TA President Renee Keitt.
Marina Aloy reportedly received a vacate notice telling her she had to move out of her Chelsea Addition apartment by Sept. 15, and died just a few days before the deadline arrived. Demonstrators rallying in the the shadow of Hudson Yards’ glass towers this weekend held a moment of silence for the elderly widow who neighbors say had been fighting a five-year battle against cancer.
“When do the mayors of this great city listen to the NYCHA residents and not allow these privatization schemes to try to weigh us down?” Isaacs Houses public housing tenant and “1NYCHA” podcaster Saundrea Coleman told demonstrators. “To the outgoing mayor and to our incoming mayor Mamdani—who I supported—hear us. We are turning up the volume on this privatization. Hear us—we do not want RAD and PACT in our city.”
NYCHA touts RAD/PACT as essential components of its “NextGeneration strategic plan” to preserve the affordability of residents’ homes while also “accessing new resources to make long-overdue repairs.”
By stripping public housing units of their Section 9 housing protections and moving them into the Section 8 voucher program, NYCHA says it is endeavoring to “generate badly needed funds for capital repairs” through private investments.
“What they want to do is erase us,” Keitt said on Saturday. "We need to invest in public housing. They’re willing to give Related Companies $2 Billion—that’s $2 billion that should go to public housing. People keep saying we don’t have the money [for maintenance and repairs]—it’s a lie. They have chosen to starve public housing. The state has a $6 billion surplus—they have the money. We need to push them for the political will [to fight for public housing].”
“1NYCHA” podcaster Saundrea Coleman.
Mayor-Elect Mamdani briefly referenced NYCHA during his rousing victory speech on Nov. 4. He later told reporters that he’s “worked hard to be accessible and transparent with New Yorkers” and that “New Yorkers deserve a government that they can trust.”
Work-Bites has made several unsuccessful attempts to reach the new mayor-elect for comment on the ongoing plan to demolish the FEC Houses specifically, and NYCHA’s privatization model overall.
“If Related gets away with demolishing our NYCHA community they will profit tremendously from using our public land and in the process cause irrevocable damage, including doing away with public housing—the only truly affordable housing that exists,” Elliott-Chelsea Houses Tenants Association VP Celinas Miranda told demonstrators on Saturday.
Representatives from the Coalition to Protect Chinatown and Lower East Side, meanwhile, said the City of New York has a long, sad history of colluding with developers to “execute a racist displacement agenda.”
“City government for decades has allowed developers to destroy the truly affordable NYCHA and rent stabilized housing we already have so that they can replace them with unaffordable luxury high rises,” Alice, a spokesperson for the organization, said.
FEC tenant Doris Ruffin challenges NYCHA’s plan to demolish her home in Chelsea.
Back in 2019, La Keesha Taylor, an activist with the Isaac Holmes Coalition, was part of the successful effort to beat back NYCHA’s similar attempts at privatization on the Upper East Side. This weekend, she warned FEC tenants and allies rallying at Hudson Yards that it is “time to get your armor on.”
“They’re making you believe you are alone,” Taylor said, “but you are not alone. You are one of many.”
Gabby, a spokesperson for the Party for Socialism and Liberation [PSL] reminded demonstrators that the war against working class people in New York City is only accelerating under the Trump administration.
“They are doing everything to give tax breaks to the rich,” she said. “They’re cutting SNAP, they’re cutting Medicaid, Medicare, they’re firing federal workers. They’ve shown very clearly they want to accelerate this war on the poor. [But] we’re the ones who build the buildings, maintain the buildings, and make them into homes. So, it’s not a crazy idea or radical idea to say we should decide the fate of housing in this country.”
It wasn’t too long ago, Keitt pointed out, that most everyone was calling low-income earners like the ones who populate NYCHA housing “essential workers” during the pandemic.
“When everyone else was at home, we were out in the streets; we were out feeding people; we were out saving lives in hospitals,” Keitt said. “We need to care about low-income people—and all people. New York is for all—not just for some people.”
NYCHA attorneys argued in court last week that its public-private scheme with Related Companies was the “best option” for FEC tenants. “Sounds like a win-win,” Judge Cohen said.
Work-Bites also reached out to Related Companies for comment on this story, but has not gotten a reply.