The Change in Property in New York

In Manhattan for Rent, 1785-1850, Elizabeth Blackmar explains how New York City property was established, became profitable, and the political conflicts in the city’s property system. The concept of property was produced by the British and Dutch colonizers of the land. What is now Manhattan became the site for trade, but not a strong internal economy. European residents on the “new” land were able to establish and own their own households and artisans could buy small pieces of land (Blackmar 15). While this continued for some time, both the Dutch and English used to the land to form connections with businessmen, endowing land to the mercantile elite. In the 1640s, the West Indies Company established gave half-free slaves “negro lots” just outside the fort to protect the company’s trade interests (Blackmar 16). This shows the role land played, as a tool for the elites to utilize. 

The land was a crucial mean for profits, but because the city was based on trade and not the use of land itself, it did not hold the same “intrinsic” value it does today. Yet as the internal economy expanded, the land became used more (Blakmar 21). While this process was already underway, the economy turned a corner, shortly after the industrial revolution. From 1785 to 1800, the population increased from 23,000 to over 60,000 people. Because the economy was increasing, as well as the sheer number of people, the land became a means for profit itself. Between 1795 and 1815, the real land costs in New York City became eight times the price (Blakmar 38). The land was no longer a place for the economic outputs to occur, as the artisans used their land or how the West Indies Company used the fort for trade. Rather, the land itself was the cite for economic transaction and growth. The financial value was in the land itself.  

This can be seen in the regulations of land emerging at the time. Henry Rutgers, a large landowner in Lower East Side, set strict terms on his lease’s, such as not building backhouses, to maintain the value of the property, even though they were against the practical use of the occupants (Blakmar 41-42). Similarly, in the early twentieth-century real estate largely backed limitations to housing because it could be used to protect their own land values, which could fall if skyscrapers, like the Singer Tower, were built (Revell 29-30). The property-based economy because the lens for decision making, as profits became a goal within itself.

As the land became profitable, the issue of land ownership became not only a question of unequal distribution but also unequal power. As independent proprietorship fell, working-class people became trapped in wage labor and rent. According to Blakmar, by 1850, the working class had lost their claims to the city’s resources and their own labor and life value. Here Blakmar compares Marxist understandings of the worker-capitalist relationship to the tenant-landowner relationship, as landowners exploit their tenants for rent. They are able to do so because they own the land, the means of production This is particularly true for the increasing tenement population in the city. Dumb-bell apartments were first constructed in 1879 and became ubiquitous. They used almost the entire lot with a small gap in the back along each side. For residents, they were largely inhospitable, with little light and access to air. But, for the landowner, they were the most efficient means for exploitation (Revel 7-9). The use of land underwent a striking transformation into modern-day property. By looking at this history, we can learn that the current state of property has been produced and is not a natural state.