The Republic of Fulton

Sicheng Wan

Herman Castro’s guffaw has a characteristic tune. Every time laughs, he gives six “ha’s” in a high voice, raising the tone from the fourth one on, as if he is a movie character making a grand entrance.

After working as an armed guard sergeant with 40 subordinates and retiring in 2015, Herman now lives in a joyful vibe with his Porto Rico fellows. Like a full-fed satisfied bear, the big Herman always sits on an eastward-facing bench at a plaza in his different beanies, blending into the buzz over there. In many ways, this man, living on SSI, would make you consider your peaceful life after retirement.

I greeted Herman. The huge ring on his right ring finger presses against my hand every time I fist him, but this is a routine suggesting that I’m welcomed to take a seat by him. He would sometimes deliver random talks in Spanish with other people there, then randomly turn to me in English, then maybe turn to a random murmur.

The plaza is in Fulton Houses, an affordable housing project that is rare in Chelsea, one of the most expensive areas in New York City. Walking a street north from Chelsea Market, you will first come across a dozen teenagers playing basketball on a court paved with fallen leaves. Then the wind becomes much milder once you walk into this plaza from the street. Withered leaves stud the grey ground with their dark brown. Rap music that comes from nowhere strolls around. Facing north, the 25 stories of 419 W, the heart of all Fulton’s 11 residential buildings, blocks the view. At the west bottom of 419 W is a small door in vivid scarlet that seldom opens, inside which is the office of Fulton’s manager, Mr. Cheng. A few feet to the right is a door in mild tea green, with a plaque in faded cobalt hanging aside saying “Fulton Tenants Association”.

Having been standing between 16th St. and 19th St. along 9th Ave. since 1965, Fulton is now home to over 2,000 tenants. There were more Irish people here at first, before Hispanic and Black started coming in in the late-70s. Then it became more Spanish and Black in the 80s, and Irish seldom appeared.

I got this information from Lenny Rosado, vice president of the Fulton Tenants Association. Having lived here since 1967, when he was 4, he is 2 years older than Fulton. Busy Lenny happened to be there that afternoon, sitting on the bench next to us. Herman fisted Lenny, then returned to his buzz.

“I guess the Irish better themselves and moved out,” Lenny told me. The short, stocky man wiped tears behind his silver eyeglasses occasionally while talking, not out of sorrow but the oncoming cold breeze, I thought. “Now it’s pretty mixed.”

It was close to 4 pm on Thursday. Herman was watching “Goldfinger” with a $55 second-hand Sylvania DVD player while occasionally chatting with others. Two dozen people gathered in front of 419 W, with a dozen standing in line while the other scattered. A food-giving by nearby churches would begin at 4 pm, as every Thursday afternoon.

In today’s $5 new white beanie, Herman started introducing everyone who passed by us to me after greeting them as he just finished his movie at 16:02. And it was really a mix. Marta Delgado, who often shares homemade rice cuisines to neighbors in a nearby courtyard. Daniel Ramirez, and the droll red curtain in his kitchen on the 2nd floor. A man always in a dark trench and trapper hat, who was given an honorary name The Mayor of Fulton. A Chinese family on the 4th floor, who once served him a ginger-and-milk drink to ease his sore throat. An old man called Petrucci who just came to us in a wheelchair, then to everyone here, asking if we want coffee, then if we want a cigarette.

Somehow, there is another mix that tenants are living in. Standing at 419 W, the touristy Chelsea Market is bustling 2 blocks away. It’s east across 9th Ave. is Google’s gigantic office building. Go west along 17th St. and across 10th Ave. will be the debut in North America of Six Senses, a global luxury hotel group, that is set to open in 2022. By October 2021, the median asking rent in Chelsea had reached $4,691, a 40.5% increase over the previous year and 42.2% higher than the average Manhattan rent of $3,300, StreetEasy’s Data Dashboard shows. At The Caledonia, a luxury residential building at south of 419 W across 17th St, the only available 1-bedroom apartment on its website marks $5,650 monthly.

This is all-about-price Chelsea. You can somewhat tell the expeditious developments in this neighborhood in recent years is on a highway whose destination is by no means for these long-time residents. They are more like scattered trees in a bleak woodland that are set to be taken down for the construction sooner or later. Only less than a half of Fulton tenants take employment as one of their income sources. Many residents live on SSI’s several hundred dollars monthly.

“If you can get free food for handout, you take it,” Lenny said, handing out flyers about Christmas events next week to the line as Herman joined it. “That means you don’t have to waste your food stamp money in SSI to go shopping for food.”

What enables them to live here is the 30-percent rule, that affordable housing tenants pay no more than 30% of their monthly household income on rents. Lenny, working as a security director in a hotel, pays $1,800 for his apartment in which his mother, his girlfriend and her daughter live. Mary Wilson, who has been living in Fulton on SSI since 2001, lives with her two children in a 3-bedroom apartment, for which she pays $269 monthly. You cannot find another apartment nearby that offers this price. You just cannot.

Living here requires wisdom, since rent is probably the only expense that won’t squeeze their livings in such a gentrified jungle. Residents go to 99-cent stores instead of Chelsea Market, where “none of them can afford to shop” the high-rate retails. Residents go to vendors who sometimes appear in 419 W’s lobby with a trailer of socks, hats and gloves at a bargain. Residents go to Western Beef, an affordable supermarket chain whose only store in Manhattan is a block away from 419 W. Everything is $2 less than Gristedes, their second choice, at seven blocks away. And obviously, for them, a $2 markup matters.

Lenny described Chelsea as an “upper-class environment”. “We are grateful that we have Western Beef over there. They go, a lot of us are in trouble,” he said, as Herman just came back and showed me his trophies. A pack of multicolor grain, a small bag of popcorn, a box of nutritious bars, three tubes of shampoo, a can of cold brew coffee, which he opened and drank immediately.

“Years ago, the model was, come public housing, betting yourself, so you could make more money and move out. But there are some people here that are not fortunate,” said Lenny. “They get stuck here for 30, 40, 50 years, because a good job is not enough to continue living in Manhattan.”

They get stuck. Living in the neighborhood that they don’t belong to, Fulton is one of the few things that they can guard. But it’s falling apart, and so do NYCHA, the largest landlord in New York City whose property is home to 1 in 15 New Yorkers. NYCHA lacks money for many necessary repairs and maintenance in Fulton, as well as in many other projects. The buildings are becoming more and more dilapidated.

“Fulton looks like crap now. There are so many homeless sleeping on the stairs. They’re pooping in the stair. They’re breaking cameras and doors and windows,” said Mary, who is now back and forth between her and her mother’s home. “It’s like somebody cut them loose, sent them there and said, I’ll pay you $10 or buy you a bottle of liquor, but do me a favor, go to Fulton and go mess it up.”

Mary is one of the leaders who have spent over two years fighting against the stepping in of RAD, a policy that enables private capital to fund Fulton for its repairs. It was therefore being watched closely by public housing advocates at the time. They feared their home would be deprived as RAD would impair its publicity — and I somehow get it. They don’t believe in RAD, while pro-RADs like Lenny don’t believe in NYCHA, their failed landlord, as “this is what public housing is about and I’ll never expect them to give us the best, greatest work.” Living on SSI in a depression among the priciest areas in the world, their incredulity is an external reflection of a deeper concern about being priced out.

“We’re lucky to have public housing here,” he told me on the bench as the dusk had come. “A lot of us are in situations financially that we need places like this to live in, and to look at us in different ways. It’s not that we’re lazy. Some of us just don’t have the credentials to have great jobs to afford apartments in Manhattan.”

He wiped his tears, for the last time, and left. Herman was still there, talking with Petrucci, who was smoking in his wheelchair. They chatted for a sentence or two and then looked at me. Petrucci took a Hamilton banknote from his pocket.

“Can you buy him a cup of coffee? Just right there at the corner. Three sugar, no milk,” Herman said, “and get me one with regular milk but no sugar? And get yourself a drink of what you want.” He passed the banknote to me and repeated his order three times in case I forgot.

I set out for our coffee. The lobby of Building C was lit up at 16:50, and a crisp clink of kitchenware came through from a window on the third floor. It’s time for a sweet dinner. I heard Herman call me from behind.

“Hey man,” said Herman, “we trust you.”