Stuyvesant Town and the slightly higher-end Peter Cooper Village were built in 1947, with the help of tax breaks, to provide homes for soldiers returning from the war and public-sector workers. (At first, at odds with the estates' current image as a model community, only whites were allowed, a policy that was abandoned, after some nasty scenes, in the 1950s.) The high-rise estates include 110 unremarkable brick buildings with 11, 232 apartments, home to about 25, 000 tenants.
ECONOMIST: Housing in New York