Common Ground (39 page)

Then McClain and Mayor Kevin White took turns digging spadefuls of earth from the construction site. Methunion Manor was finally underway.

At the last moment, in yet another dispute over project design, Bonwit Construction Company was replaced by Starrett Brothers & Eken of New York. A large construction company, Starrett had built many of America’s best-known buildings—the Empire State, Pittsburgh’s Gateway Center—and such housing developments as New York’s Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village. There could be no doubt about its qualifications. Yet rising construction costs soon squeezed the company’s profit margin. In such situations, many contractors reacted by omitting work required in the specifications, replacing designated materials with less expensive substitutes, scrimping on craftsmanship and finishing. Even the most competent companies, aware that such projects were designed for the poor, cut corners in a way they wouldn’t have dared had they been building private homes for the wealthy. Moreover,
churches and other non-profit groups which sponsored so many 221 (d) 3 projects lacked the experience to ride herd on such buildings; this often resulted in shoddy, inferior, or defective work.

Witness the battle of the bricks. In July 1970, with two Methunion Manor buildings more than half complete, the Kelsey-Ferguson Brick Company reported that because of a wildcat strike at its plant, it was running short of Concord Blend brick. In August, Henry Boles authorized use of Quaker Town brick, which was more orange in tone, “provided that black bricks were added to effect the transition.” But the black bricks were never added. In September, when the scaffolding was removed, passersby could easily detect a marked change in brick color. On September 28, Elliott Rothman, a South End architect, wrote Mayor White, “You would fight against such action in Back Bay, Beacon Hill or West Roxbury. The South End also requires enforcement of reasonable construction procedures.” The BRA fired off a letter to the Reverend McClain, noting, “The great variance of brick colors detracts immensely from the aesthetics of the buildings. Much adverse comment is being received from various residents of the South End … You are requested to take immediate action for the removal of all brick facing varying from that as approved.” But the two buildings were largely complete. The church decided the Quaker Town brick should be dyed to the color of Concord Blend. When officials contended that the dye would fade in sunlight, the contractors were compelled to set up a special escrow account to pay for further repairs.

After the brick fiasco, the BRA inspectors grew more vigilant and soon discovered other glaring deficiencies. Concrete foundations were “in poor shape and present a bad aesthetic appearance with popr patchwork, non-matching mortar colors, very rough surfaces from worn-out or gouged forms.” Stairs and landings had a reverse pitch, so they were “puddling badly and will create hazardous conditions during cold weather.” Roofs leaked and created “stains and dampness on ceilings.” Light poles in the parking lot were “very wobbly and globes are not set securely.” Doors warped and sprang from their tracks. But by then it was too late for anything but minor repairs. The church had already opened a rental office and flooded the neighborhood with brochures announcing: “Convenience, Comfort and Safety in a New Community. 150 families will enjoy many fine facilities in the all new South End community developed by Union United Methodist Church. Methunion Manor is not only a new apartment complex, it is a new community. Convenient for Methunion residents will be many services offered in the 9,600 square feet of commercial space. All prospective tenants and their references are carefully reviewed.”

By autumn 1970, Rachel Twymon was at work in the church’s rental office, answering the telephone and helping applicants fill out their forms. Using her access to survey the available apartments, she settled on a four-bedroom unit at Columbus Avenue and Yarmouth Street. Relatively spacious, it had plenty of light for her plants. More important, its first-floor location would spare her
from using either the stairs or the elevator. With its ordinary interest-rate subsidy, the apartment rented for $222 a month, but Rachel qualified for the rent-supplement program, under which she would pay only one-quarter of her monthly income, or about $75 (utilities included), while the Department of Housing and Urban Development picked up the rest. It seemed like a bargain.

Rachel was full of “great hopes” in June 1971 as she and her children left Orchard Park and began their new life at Methunion Manor. And for a time it seemed, indeed, like a new life. The buildings’ brick fronts glowed in the summer sunshine. Fresh linoleum and bright paint gleamed in the hallways. The kitchens and bathrooms shone with new enamel. Everybody was excited about the crisp, modern feel of the place. Neighbors chatted eagerly in the hallways, exchanging tales of the “pigpens” they had left behind.

Rachel was happiest of all about Methunion’s location. At last she was out of that dreary public housing, away from that deteriorating, crime-ridden neighborhood. Here she felt near the center of things. She agreed entirely with another tenant, A. L. Wesley, Jr., who wrote in the tenant bulletin:

But Rachel’s euphoria was short-lived. In midsummer, the toilets in both her bathrooms began backing up, flooding the apartment with water and causing extensive damage to rugs and furniture. A plumber would get them working only to have them back up again. It happened a dozen times that summer before engineers discovered that a four-inch sewer pipe had been installed where eight-inch pipe had been specified.

As winter arrived, Methunion’s tenants confronted another problem. Their heat was controlled by a thermostat outside each building, which triggered a gas-fired boiler when the temperature on the street dropped below 57 degrees. There was no way to adjust heat to the actual temperatures in apartments. The
thermometer often reached 85 inside Rachel’s apartment, more than that on higher floors. The tenants could gain relief only by opening their windows. Some days the heat was so oppressive the Twymons streamed onto the sidewalk, panting for air. When her mother came to visit, she told Rachel, “They’re trying to cook you niggers and you ain’t got the message yet.”

All kinds of little things went wrong: cracks opened in the plaster ceilings; when a heavy truck rattled by on Columbus Avenue, white dust sifted down, covering Rachel’s plants; the basements flooded whenever it rained; bathroom grouting cracked; shower heads wobbled.

Some of Methunion’s deterioration was due to tenant negligence. Once there had been brave talk of a “multi-racial, multi-class project,” but no such balance was ever achieved. Of the 147 families who moved in that spring and summer of 1971, 130 were black, 7 Spanish-speaking, 4 Oriental, only 6 white. More important, the project never attracted middle-class tenants—there was a teacher, a nurse, and several salesmen, but many families were on some form of public assistance. Preference had gone to those displaced by urban renewal, most of them low-income. Thirty-eight families received rent supplements from HUD, twenty-two from the Boston Housing Authority. And the commitment to tenant screening had gone largely unfulfilled: most of those who met the income limits were automatically accepted.

Efforts had been made to secure tenant cooperation. The Codman Company, a management firm hired by the church to administer Methunion, put up large, brightly colored posters which called cheerily for the tenants’ help: “Here at Methunion Manor we have an opportunity. The opportunity starts with a beautiful new building. We set the example we want our children to follow by taking care of our apartment. That’s why we cooperate in keeping the halls and elevators clean and free of bicycles, baby carriages and children’s toys…. That’s why we realize that it’s up to us to prevent an insect and rodent problem. If we take our garbage and trash to the trash chute in the hall every day this problem will not happen.”

But such cooperation wasn’t always forthcoming. In March 1972, Roland Peters, Methunion’s manager, issued eviction notices to two tenants, both welfare recipients receiving rent supplements. Mrs. M.’s estranged husband had stabbed her nephew in her apartment the previous December. Since her separation, Mrs. M. had received numerous male visitors, with whom she could be found drinking and playing cards at all hours. “It would appear that Mrs. M. exercises little control over the behavior of her children. They write profane statements on the hall walls, in lobbies and commit other acts of vandalism.” Peters described the other tenant, Mrs. K., as a “psychopath” because of “her speech impediment, her dermatology condition and her obnoxiousness, all of which subject her to ridicule from people who come in contact with her; her affinity for minding everyone else’s business—which is further cause for rejection by other tenants; her antagonism to anyone, including a landlord, who suggests conformity to rules and regulations; her refusal to sign a lease; her refusal to pay rent.”

In a letter to the Welfare Department reporting his action, an exasperated Peters said the cases illustrated “the problems we are encountering in attempting to make low and moderate income housing work…. Many tenants have asked where we get these families. Recently you asked me if we screen applicants. We try, but how is it possible for us to determine in any screening process how these human beings will behave in our units?” Some months later, another manager warned more bluntly that Methunion was becoming a “dumping ground for troubled families.”

But many tenants held management largely responsible for conditions in the project. In June 1972, a group met with the board of the Columbus Avenue Housing Corporation to complain that the corporation and its management company had failed to maintain the buildings or enforce minimum standards among residents. The board promised to investigate, but barely two months later several dozen tenants signed a petition renewing their charges. “Leases have not been enforced,” it alleged. “Tenants sit on the front steps, littering the steps and entrance…. Halls are not kept washed and waxed. Tenants too often play stereos at night, too loud. Children play out of windows. Light bulbs have been removed from the back of the building…. These are the same things that were brought before the Board at the mass meeting when the majority of tenants met at the church. It seems nobody cares.” When the petition achieved nothing, twelve of the signers formed the Methunion Concerns Committee to work for an alleviation of tenant grievances.

Among the founders was Rachel Twymon. By now Rachel was deeply disappointed in Methunion. Gil Caldwell’s dream had soured. Not only had the project failed to bring Union Methodist closer to the community, it had deepened the gulf between Union’s members, mostly suburban and middle-class, and Methunion’s tenants, mostly working-class or welfare clients. When the tenants complained, the Housing Corporation was deeply aggrieved. They had tried to do the right thing, they had devoted endless time and energy to Methunion, they had provided badly needed housing, and now the very people they had done all this for were raising all sorts of ridiculous objections. The complainers were “ungrateful” malcontents.

Only a handful of Methunion’s tenants belonged to the church. As one tenant with a foot in both camps, Rachel found the mutual antagonism intolerable. At church she heard people complain about the “riffraff” at the project; in tenant meetings she heard people complain about the “uppity boogies” in the church. This conflict echoed the old tension within her own family, a conflict she had never fully resolved. She wasn’t altogether certain on which side she belonged.

But by late 1972, the conflict between tenants and church was submerged in a larger issue. Methunion Manor was out of money. To insiders, this came as no surprise. Like many 221 (d) 3 projects across the country, Methunion had been in financial trouble long before it accepted its first tenant, for its rents had been determined less on economic than on political grounds. Under heavy
pressure from South End community groups, the Mayor and the BRA desperately needed housing which would be perceived as replacements for the demolished units. In setting rents for these projects, HUD had shown little concern for the project’s financial viability. And Gil Caldwell had his own agenda: the church’s search for credibility with inner-city blacks. Eager to build, Union had allowed itself to underestimate Methunion’s operating costs to ensure that the FHA would approve its mortgage application. And, of course, the FHA—which shared HUD’s emphasis on housing production—could be counted on not to scrutinize the figures too closely. For there was a tacit understanding among all parties that the first priority was to get the buildings up and occupied; then, if expenses outran revenues, an appeal could be made to the nation’s conscience, and the federal government would presumably ride to the rescue, as it had so often in the sixties.

Indeed, this might well have happened had the deficits been as modest as originally expected. What nobody could have anticipated was the inflation of the early seventies. Most devastating of all was the extraordinary surge in the cost of utilities. Natural-gas prices skyrocketed—a particular problem for Methunion due to its wasteful gas-fired heating plant. Electric rates went up as well. Boston’s water and sewer rates increased 67 percent in April 1972 alone. Inflation affected virtually every operating cost: insurance, taxes, salaries, rubbish collection, and maintenance.