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Moving Into A Frozen Tenement
- Maggie Wrigley and her boyfriend moved into an abandoned Lower East Side tenement in winter 1987 with a broken car axle outside the door.
- They endured no heat, frozen water, and rebuilt rooms together to make the place livable.
How Buildings Become Worthless
- Economic decline turned many once-usable buildings into liabilities by the 1970s and 80s in New York City.
- Landlords 'milked' properties, stopped repairs and taxes, and sometimes abandoned buildings to the city.
Planned Shrinkage Amplified Decay
- City 'planned shrinkage' withdrew services from poor neighborhoods, accelerating decay and abandonment.
- That policy created large stocks of derelict, city-owned buildings ripe for squatting.