MSCC, John Mudd, July 14, 2026

Mihir Zaveri’s New York Times article, Renovate or Replace: The Fight Over How To Fix N.Y.C Public Housing (published April 4, 2026), enraged Chelsea’s community and anyone  who is watching the dismantling of our society. But the worst of it was James Baron’s New York Times article that made Mihir’s, and his newspaper’s credibility worse—you can’t have a colleague interview you from and for the same paper and expect people to take you seriously as a reporter. 

As if they are the saviors, James Baron irredeemably asks, Can Developers Help Save Public Housing (article published on April 7, 2026); rather than face the truth that developers are wanting to see public housing’s demise. James leads into his supportive piece with borrowed lines from Mihir Zaveri’s article,

“A fight over four public housing developments in the trendy Chelsea neighborhood is escalating. It’s a high-stakes test of the city’s responsibility to its lowest-income residents”

that labels people trendy and poor, and minimizes the destruction of 18 buildings—homes for more than 3,000 people, and the theft of 14 acres, which include mini parks and playgrounds for the community. 

A narrative emerges from the corporate playbook on ‘How to Gentrify a Neighborhood’—not their exact title, but surely something similar—to falsely describe Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses as “too run-down.” 

As if it was a real interview, with an unbiased authority, Mihir shields Related Companies, the developer in question by never mentioning the enormous profits they will extract from the public’s coffers or from the bequeathed land mass. He blames the City for wanting “to demolish them all [the Fulton and Chelsea Elliott houses] and build replacements, a $1.2 billion project that would add nine new buildings with roughly 1,000 affordable apartments and 2,400 luxury units.” 

Most of us, who are struggling in an unaffordable city, with unaffordable rents, understand the word ‘affordable’ is an abused term for rental units that are controlled and marketed by the real estate industry. However, let us assume the ‘City’ is in charge, giving up approximately 8,000 desperately needed uninhabited NYCHA apartments to developers in exchange for 1,000 (here is that word again) ‘affordable’ apartments—yet to be built, and allowing luxury investments on public land, tells the public that governance is either stupid or sleeping with the enemy. And Mihir is a tad off the mark, it is a 2.4 billion wealth extractive project that will surely grow.

The abundance theory, shot to hell long ago as a means to bring affordable living, is sustained by this ludicrous one sided deal; furthermore, applying the ‘democratic socialist’ label to a Mayor who wants to address the city’s housing shortage by supporting Related’s demolition and gentrification plan further discredits the plot, article, and Mamdani.

Someone must be passing notes: the shameless ‘socialist’ claim was also co-opted by the Daily Dirt, the trade newsletter of The Real Deal, a publication devoted to the emotional needs of the real-estate industry, and if Zohran Mamdani supports the demolition project, then anyone opposing the project must be a “total lunatic.” This is not logic. This is the most panic-laden argument I have ever heard. —Layla Law-Gisiko

But the real lunatics are those who keep treading the same path, with the same sales pitch-build more luxury housing now and somehow affordability will eventually “trickle down” to everyone else. But many of my neighbors and all across Brooklyn have already lived through this experiment. Williamsburg, Bed-Stuy, Downtown Brooklyn, Long Island City, Gowanus — now headed into E Flatbush, Crown Heights, Brownsville and more-all sold with promises of affordability and inclusion. Yet rents have exploded, speculation continues to surge out of control, longtime residents were and continue to be pushed out, and neighborhoods have become increasingly inaccessible to working-class families. The people who benefited most were large developers, real estate investors, and politically connected interests and yes, the “abundance” YIMBYS! —Sandy Reiburn, Chelsea Public Housing Coalition

“The backlash from some residents and neighborhood groups who question the involvement of the Related Companies, the creator of Hudson Yards”—another development failure—cannot be expressed vehemently enough; particularly when the articles exonerate and praises the developers, while they attempt to remove residents from their homes and deny them the right to due process.

Although inline historically as marketing tools, it is always amazing how the mainstream media will risk their credibility to participate in the ruling class’s alternative reality. The insidious deconstruction of our domestic landscapes, not to be compared, but akin to the United States’s Middle East demolition strategy, is happening at the behest of the ruling class. 

The Related Companies, with their allies (NYCHA, HUD, Mayor, and elected officials) are stripping away the last bastion of truly affordable living that gave a lift to the white folks suffering poverty in the 1930s. Racing to take over the entire public housing stock, presumably, as they have in Chelsea, and under the guise of rehabilitation, Related will wage a campaign of terror until residents give up their homes to be demolished. —Terror is the right word, and not to be softened. The threats of eviction and annihilation of housing stability are prescient. 

The gentrification plan for Chelsea is a violent one, and the ability to craft language that avoids facts and rationalizes Related’s plan to drive people from their homes and market themselves as a source of news, while being a sort of bulletin board and public relations firm for the ruling class – the people who run things, is truly remarkable.

NYCHA is the dirtiest of landlords, and Related (Stephen M. Ross, Jeff Blau) are making plans to profit from demolishing people’s homes to steal the land beneath it, but despite their assurance that ‘it is a done deal,’ and having gone to great lengths to make it so, try as they will, for the moment, WE ARE WINNING! The courts have approved and upheld a TRO preventing NYCHA from doing anything in furtherance of their plan to privatize and demolish our homes. Don’t believe the naysayers who tell you it’s a done deal. The courts and the law are on our side.—John Low-Beer, Attorney

Amassing great wealth and power is dependent on pliable partners; the mainstream media, like most of our politicians, have misplaced their humanity to displace whole communities. However, no matter how heartless (think violent gentrification) and heinous (think genocide) the crimes, the people’s dignity, integrity, and humanity will never be lost, as long as we are in the fight. And like the past and present struggles, we will strive to leave an indelible mark, if not on the broader landscapes: the Nation, State, or City, it will be here in Chelsea.