BLOCK ASSOCIATIONS, P.2

Also in Brooklyn, The Hoyt Street Block Association has hosted community get-togethers, meetings with politicians and police, and events ranging from cultural parties to fashion shows, says its president, Margaret Cusack. Every year, the block association runs a plant sale to raise money for beautification projects and other plans. When it was formed about 30 years ago, the association took an abandoned lot and turned it into a park.

Neighborhood Security

Block associations can also help with security issues. The West 104th Street Block Association pays a private security guard to walk the area six nights a week from about 4 PM to midnight. Zirinsky says the co-op board contributes about $6,000 a year for the service, the money raised by assessing the shareholders in the 81-unit building. “People have always been very supportive of it,” he says.

Block association president Hanna Rubin, who also lives in a co-op, says the guard is helpful even though several of the buildings have doorpersons. “Our block gets a lot of traffic and it’s not a short block,” she says, adding: “It has definitely had a deterrent effect to have a guard around.”

Kirk Arrowood, the secretary of his co-op board at the 169-unit 65 Morton Street, who also serves on the local block association, reports a different challenge. The co-op needed to replace a gate that connected its two buildings. Because the complex has protected status, the board had to go through the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission. Fortunately, a member of the association had contacts within the commission because of his activism in the neighborhood, and assisted the board in navigation.

“As a shareholder," says Arrowood, "many of the things you are concerned about have to do with the value of your property. And that’s more than just the building. It’s about the beauty of the block.”

How do you get involved? You can search online for your block association, and if one doesn’t exist, you can learn about forming your own by calling one in your area. One place to look up local groups by ZIP Code is Neighborhood Link.

Abridged from Habitat, November 2007. For the complete article and more, join our Archive >>