The Phoenix of Putnam Avenue

“Here’s where we’ll have a planting garden for children. Over there is where the Japanese gazebo will go. And here, the benches and chess tables.”

On a chilly afternoon in early March 2010, Angela Stokes is standing in the backyard of 300 Putnam Avenue, a 52-unit, 6-story residential building on a block of neat brownstones in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood.

She has just spent the day helping the last of the tenants who were displaced for renovations move back into their own apartments. Her eyes gleam as she talks about the improvements that have been underway since BSDC, the non-profit community organization where she works, bought the building at a courthouse-steps auction and completed the final sale and closing in 2008. It has been a striking transformation.

Before BSDC became involved, tenants in the building had lived for about a year without gas, heat, hot water or electricity. The elevator didn’t work; neither did the trash incinerator. Neighbors could see each other through gaping holes in their walls. Ceilings and floors were bowed or worse from water damage.

As sometimes happens when landlords face foreclosure, this building — which once had been lovely, perhaps 20 years ago — had been abandoned by its owner in 2005. Drug dealers had set up shop in some of the apartments. Police officers from the local precinct, it is said, considered the building to be one of the most dangerous they might encounter.

Angela points to landscaped areas flanking the gate to the building’s outdoor and indoor parking. “When we started, the dirt here was piled high,” she says, “and you wouldn’t believe what we found buried in there. Every kind of garbage. Dead cats and dogs.”

“It was something I’d never seen in my life,” Angela says. “I’d never seen it this bad, with people living in these conditions. I knew that I couldn’t be here just on and off. I told Rhonda [Lewis, BSDC’s President and CEO] that I’d need to be here every day.”

Angela had BSDC’s full support. She also had 22 years’ experience as a New York City corrections officer, including 15 years as the union representative for 800 colleagues. Although it was the first time she had worked on a project like this — and despite her simultaneous BSDC assignments with other buildings and community groups — Angela was not deterred by the magnitude or complexity of the challenges.

One of the first things Angela did was to work with the 79th Police Precinct to clear the building of drug dealers. “I told the dealers that this building was about to turn around and, frankly, drugs and children and seniors just don’t go together,” she recounts.

Eventually, the corridors ceased to be hangouts. Angela walked through the building each day, checking in on the tenants, explaining the building rehabilitation plans, keeping morale up.

“I’m going to be here with you and see this project out to the end,” she would reassure them. “BSDC is going to help with your apartment needs, your building management needs and your social service needs.” To make sure that she would be always available to the residents, Angela even changed her cell phone service from 1,000 minutes per month to an unlimited plan. “They call me every day,” she says.

Even so, it was hard for some tenants to let go of the suspicions borne of long hardship. When their turns came for apartment renovation, three tenants were afraid to move out, despite the dreadful conditions, fearing that it would not really be “only temporary.”

Through her warmth and honest reassurance, Angela was able to earn their trust. She devised an innovative “checkerboard” displacement whereby 26 out of the 27 tenants were able to sojourn in other apartments within the building while their own was renovated, with much of their belongings held temporarily in storage.

Angela also took steps to involve the rest of the block in the transformation. She inaugurated a new block association with a “meet and greet” in September 2009 that blossomed into a full-fledged block party with more than 300 adults and children participating.

The residents of the neighboring brownstones had a chance to learn what improvements were in store and, importantly, began to rebuild relationships with the tenants of 300 Putnam, who had been shunned for years by their neighbors. One of the block’s residents, who has partnered closely with Angela to help make the transformation a success, invited the minister of the local church to give an opening prayer.

The contractor for the renovations donated temporary basketball hoops for the youngsters. Angela’s friend, the general manager of the Harlem Globetrotters, attended along with some members of the team. For the building tour, Angela secured the participation of the local Salvation Army outlet, which let her take all that was necessary to furnish a model apartment. After the block party concluded, the items were given away to people in need.

Today, the apartments have shiny new parquet floors, all-new kitchen appliances, tiled bathrooms, ample closet space and more. One tenant, who works at Ikea, arranged for discounts on new furnishings for the residents of 300 Putnam.

The building also boasts numerous “green” features, including motion-activated lighting, energy-efficient windows, and energy-efficient air conditioners provided through the Weatherization Assistance Program of the New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal. Solar panels will be installed on the roof, making 300 Putnam the first solar-powered multi-family building in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

In the basement there will be a computer room, an amenity that highlights BSDC’s ongoing social service commitment. To help the building’s struggling tenants achieve economic stability, Angela has held weekly job readiness workshops in the lobby. And, with referrals to the non-profit New York City Justice Corps, BSDC is helping community youth who have been involved with the criminal justice system develop social, technical and leadership skills through community service; internships; and job and educational assistance. In fact, one Justice Corps intern has played a key role in the 300 Putnam project by assisting with computer-based tasks — his first steady job.

The rent at 300 Putnam is 30% of income, regardless of family and apartment size. About half of the apartments were vacant, so BSDC advertised for new tenants. They received more than three hundred applications for the low-income housing. Angela explains that, after the income and other eligibility requirements are met, the goal is to bring in people who demonstrate potential to contribute to the life of the building — artists, for example, or people with unique, community-oriented skills — or for whom the opportunity to have an apartment would be essentially life-saving, such as the woman who was a bit late on application day because, without enough money for the fare, she had walked to Bedford-Stuyvesant from the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

Angela seems to know everyone in the neighborhood and the mailman too, and exchanges greetings with all. Cynthia, a 12-year resident on the block, passes by and eagerly shares her appraisal of the dramatic changes at 300 Putnam. “BSD did a wonderful job,” she says. They made the block a better block. I feel really good living here now.”

Angela ascribes the building’s success to the unique drive of its tenants, who had demonstrated a camaraderie and commitment to making their lives better even before BSDC became involved. They had gone to neighbors to ask for leftover paint, to brighten the walls as much as possible. They shared food. Despite deplorable living conditions, some children in the building achieved higher education and professional careers.

“With that will and the little bit of hope that they had left,” Angela says, “they’ve accomplished something amazing.” In keeping with its mission to serve the community and promote empowerment to the community’s residents, Bridge Street Development Corporation’s partnership with the residents of the building and the block continues.

The organization has collaborated with its established partners, including the New York City Department of Health, Arthritis Foundation, Diabetes Association, YMCA and numerous others, to bring health and wellness seminars and financial literacy workshops to the residents of 300 Putnam and the homeowners on the block.

This story about the Bridge Street Development Corporation (BSDC), one of ANHD’s 98 member organizations, is made possible by financial and writing support provided by Citigroup, which partners with ANHD and with BSDC to help develop communities in New York. Citigroup’s support for BSDC includes funding for financial education programs for the tenants of the 300 Putnam building and the residents of the block.