About Me
Co-op City is the largest cooperative housing development in the world. It is located in the Baychester section of the Borough of the Bronx in Northeast New York City. Situated at the intersection of Interstate 95 and the Hutchinson River Parkway, the community is part of Bronx Community Board 10.Co-op City opened in 1969 and was completed in 1971. Its 15,372 residential units, in thirty-five high rise buildings and seven clusters of townhouses, make it the largest single residential development in the United States. Co-op City also has eight parking structures, three shopping centers, an educational park (including a high school, two middle schools and three grade schools) and a firehouse. The adjacent Bay Plaza shopping area has movies, department stores, and a supermarket. The apartment buildings, referred to by number, range from 24 floors to as high as 33.The project was sponsored and built by the United Housing Foundation, an organization established in 1951 by Abraham Kazan and the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. It was designed by cooperative architect Herman J. Jessor. The name of the complex's corporation itself was later changed to Riverbay. As a cooperative development, the tenants run the complex through an elected board. There is no pay for serving on the board.
Co-Op city is situated by the Northeastern Edge of New York CityCo-op City is on the site of Freedomland, a former amusement park. Prior to its use as a theme park and residential apartments, a small municipal airport was established there. When traveling into the city southbound from I-95, it is one of the first sights that a traveler sees and the first vivid example of New York's urban immensity. The shares of stock which prospective purchasers bought to enable them to occupy Co-op City apartments became the subject of protracted litigation culminating in a U.S. Supreme Court decision United Housing Foundation, Inc. v. Forman, 421 U.S. 837 (1975).Co-op City was home to a large Jewish community in its early years, many of whom relocated from other areas of the Bronx such as the Grand Concourse. African Americans made up the majority of other tenants, but the community was known for it's ethnic diversity. As early tenants grew older and moved away, the newer residents reflected the population of the Bronx, with African American and Hispanic residents becoming the majority. In the 1990s after the fall of the USSR, the neighborhood received an influx of former Eastern Block emigres, especially from Russia and Albania...............Untimely death of George Marks
In the late spring of 1976, Inner City Electronics, in the lower level plaza of the Dreiser Loop shopping center, had installed pinball machines, and had become something of teen hangout. (Pinball machines had technically been illegal in New York City until that time, dating back to Mayor LaGuardia, who had spoken of children stealing nickels from their mothers' purses to play the machines.) Rabbi Solomon I. Berl of adjoining Young Israel of Co-op City and other merchants called for the removal of the machines. In a letter published in the City News, June 10, 1976 he wrote "The riffraff from the entire community has made the Plaza Level a hangout for beer parties, gambling, bottle-throwing and card parties. ... Youngsters who never played machines are being 'sucked in' and upon becoming addicted to it would probably resort to mugging to acquire the funds to feed the habit. ... It is most urgent that immediate action be taken as each evening attracts more and more of these misguided youngsters."
Immediate action was taken. On Wednesday afternoon, June 9, George Marks, 20, of Grace Avenue, was part of a group of unruly youthts ordered to disperse from Inner City Electronics.Security Officer Walter Wimmer got into a shoving match with Marks, who then ran up to the upper level, with Wimmer in pursuit.Patrolmen Joseph Vespa and Philip McCardle and Sergeant Anthony Faenza responded in a security car, and along with Lieutenant Bennie Schwall, arrested Marks.While Marks was in the patrol car with those officers, with his hands cuffed behind his back, he was shot through the heart and lung by Schwall, and died instantly. City News, June 17, 1976Schwall was indicted in August of that year on manslaughter charges. I have been unable to find the resolution to that charge. That month, Marjorie Marks, George's mother, announced through her attorney, Abraham Goldner, that she would be bringing suit against the Riverbay Corporation.In a private telephone conversation in with Mr. Goldner in 1991, when I was looking to retain a lawyer for a similar lawsuit against Riverbay Corporation for Security misconduct, Mr. Goldner was close-mouthed but indicated a settlement had been reached which tended to satisfy justice. I suspect that this means that Mrs. Marks' settlement, like my own, contained a gag clause.In a follow-up story in the City News, August 26, 1976 a check of records showed that about 10 percent of the men and women employed on the Co-op Security force since Co-op City started had been indicted for major crimes.Security Disarmed
The City News reported on September 16, 1976 that Charles Rosen, then chairman of the Riverbay Board of Directors, had disarmed the Security officers to assure that they not do the job of the police, saying "The security department is not a Police Department; it is a crime-deterrent department.
"The Security guards have no police training."Security Rearmed
In a much less prominent story on March 24, 1977, the City News reported that Security was to be re-armed. Larry Dolnick, then president of the Riverbay board, said that officers with the rank of sergeant or higher would be allowed to carry guns on the job, to cope with an increasing incidence of criminals using guns in the community in then-recent weeks.
As of Thanksgiving 1990, Security officers were armed and generally wore ballistic vests.Right to strike against public safety
Security Force strikes include 1985. Link or more detail needed here -- suggestions welcome
Ferrer v. Riverbay: Rape Victim's Suicide by Reason of Police Verbal Abuse
See Attorneys Queller and Fisher's page on Notes and Decisions for details about this case, 214 A.D.2d 312; 624 N.Y.S.2d 425 which is, as noted in the New York Law Journal, April 6, 1995:
an action involving the suicide of a 12-year old rape victim, the Court denied the defendant's cross-motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint, finding issues of fact were presented as to whether the defendant had voluntarily assumed a duty to care for or control the infant decedent but carried out that duty negligently.
The terse decision reveals that after learning of the incident, the officers isolated the girl, refused her request to call her mother, and verbally abused her until she agreed to press charges. They then left her unattended, at which point she jumped [fell] from a window balcony. Whether it was reasonably foreseeable to the defendant officers, under the circumstances, that the girl would commit suicide was held to constitute an issue for the jury. ...........2005 Law enforcement officials arrested 14 people yesterday on gun and drug trafficking charges in a pre-dawn police operation in the Bronx that capped an 11-month investigation into illegal drug and gun trafficking. "Operation Double Trouble," as the investigation was known, resulted in the confiscation of 30 guns, substantial amounts of crack cocaine and marijuana, and nearly $14,000 in cash during the arrests made yesterday morning in Co-op City, officials said.The operation took place around 6 a.m., when roughly 200 officers executed simultaneous arrests in Co-op City. The residential community has been the site of an investigation of interstate gun trafficking and drug dealing since January, when a shootout between two rival gangs prompted an investigation by the New York City Police Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, along with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Attorney's Office, and the U.S. Marshals.At a press conference yesterday, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said, "With the arrests today, we are confident in having apprehended the individuals responsible for all of the shootings in Co-op City this year." Including the weapons confiscated yesterday almost 50 guns have been seized, a spokesman for the ATF, Joseph Green, said.But a day after police buried the second officer killed this year, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Michael Garcia, said the tragedy of their deaths reinforced a need for "vigilance and safety" regarding guns.Yesterday, the ATF said a total of 24 defendants were charged, including the 14 arrested in the Bronx; three who were in prison on other charges; four who were arrested last week, and three who remained at large as of last night.During their investigation, officials discovered gun sellers in Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Georgia who facilitated the weapons trafficking, Mr. Kelly said. He said at least four individuals outside of New York could face prosecution
