Wednesday’s reading mentioned the phrase “Separate but equal.” “In the pivotal case of Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that racially separate facilities, if equal, did not violate the Constitution.”[1] It was a phrase that was also used in Brown v. Board of Education. The phrase made us think whether people could be separated but still treated equally. Throughout history, we realized that, that it could not be done. From the articles we have read, it said that “public housing was used as an outright device to maintain racial segregation in housing” (Marcus, 381).[2] In addition, it was “common for colored tenants in Harlem to pay twice as much as white tenants for the same apartments” (Radford, 149).[3] Just like how African American students received lower standard education under the idea of “Separate but Equal,” African Americans also were living under inferior conditions and were treated poorly.

     Although the public houses provided places for people to live in, it also barred low income families out of the door. For example, "the rents for First Houses were substantial, [and] average monthly income of the first tenants was about $100 a month… a prospective applicant could not afford to live in First Houses. It excluded the unemployed as well as many of the working poor” (Marcus, 364).
    

     For some reason the difference between the living conditions and social status of the rich and the poor reminded me of the Brighton Beach Oceana Condominiums. I thought it was interesting how, across the street from the $600k to $2,000k condos, there were co-op apartment buildings. The Condos were well gated and had guards at entrances while the co-ops looked like the project except it had an exterior that was slightly more modified. The picture that i put together below is a more exaggerated version of what I saw at Brighton Beach. (I wish I took a picture of it).    

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