Report from Vladech Hall:

               Baruch Charney Vladeck: An American Story

Did you ever wonder how Vladeck Hall at the Amalgamated Housing 
Cooperative got that name? The story of Baruch Charney Vladeck is an 
exciting and interesting one. Charney Bromberg, a grandson of Vladeck gave 
a warm and personal talk about his grandfather at Vladeck Hall on Feb 24 
which was very well received and appreciated.

Baruch Charney was born in 1886 near Minsk in the Russian Empire. During 
his teenage years he was caught up in the revolutionary ferment among the 
workers and peasants. Bromberg told us revolutionary stories about these 
early years of his grandfather's life. The times then were such that a 
young person could find value in teaching peasants mathematics and 
economics and literature. Baruch Charney was a gifted orator and 
organizer. He became involved with the Bund (originally called the Bund of 
Russia, Lithuania and Poland), the secular Jewish workers organization 
affiliated with the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party. Vladeck 
(Wladek in Polish) is a colloquial form of a common Polish first name 
(Wladyslaw). It was taken by Baruch Charney as were many other aliases so 
he could avoid arrest by the Czarist police. The Bund eventually smuggled 
him out of Poland through Germany and to the US. That was in 1908.

Upon arrival at Ellis Island, Bromberg told us, Vladeck had a basket with 
him. He pretended it contained his clothes. But all he owned was what he 
was wearing. Had the authorities known he was penniless they might have 
sent him back to Russia. But his two older brothers were there at his 
arrival and vouched for him. The Bund sent him almost immediately on an 
organizing tour to tell people about the conditions in Russia. When he 
used the name Vladeck he was able to attract a crowd because the 
reputation of Vladeck was well known in the US.

We learned that Vladeck organized for the Bund and for the American 
Socialist Party. His sensitivity was toward improvement in the daily lives 
of working people. He worked and wrote for the Yiddish newspaper the 
Jewish Daily Forward. He was appointed its City Editor and then its 
Business Manager, a job he held from 1918 until his death.

Vladeck felt from his organizing in Russia that politics must help working 
people have sufficient food, good housing, shorter working hours and 
education. His plea was for the socialist movement to pay attention to 
these. In 1917, Vladeck was one of seven socialists elected to the 70 
member New York City Board of Alderman, predecessor to today's City 
Council. He took a keen interest in the failure of the commercial housing 
market to provide affordable housing for New York's working people.

Vladeck sponsored several local laws aimed at creating public support for 
low cost housing. In the 1920s, when there was serious talk about starting 
the Amalgamated Housing, the plan was to offer the apartments for an 
investment of $500 per room or $1500 to $2000 per apartment. That was 
beyond the means of most workers. To solve that problem, the publisher of 
the Forward deposited $150,000 into the Amalgamated bank to be used as 
collateral against which the workers then made loans that allowed them to 
be cooperators. Vladeck played a major role in that transaction and many 
others by which the Forward made possible progressive activity in NYC and 
the US.

Bromberg told us about the support by the Forward spearheaded by Vladeck 
that helped A. Philip Randolph and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters 
do its important organizing among black workers. Bromberg also told us 
about a trip Vladeck made back to Russia trying in vain to get Soviet 
support for a boycott of trade with Germany to protest Nazi crimes against 
Jews and others.

In 1933-4 Vladeck founded and became first president of the Jewish Labor 
Committee, an umbrella group of Jewish labor and fraternal organizations 
which organized anti-Nazi activity in the US. Also in 1934, Vladeck was 
appointed by Mayor La Guardia to the New York City Housing Authority. In 
1937 Vladeck initiated one of first municipal slum clearance projects.

Vladeck died suddenly of a coronary thrombosis on Oct 31, 1938. Bromberg 
told us that the New York Times reported at least 500,000 people attended 
Vladeck's funeral but the true number was close to a million. Had he 
lived, perhaps Vladeck would have been elected governor of New York. This 
amazing man was a socialist and a revolutionary all his life. His 
political and social activism was directed in many practical directions. 
In his short 52 years he had attracted great love and support from many 
people of all classes. A chapter about Vladeck in the book Distinguished 
American Jews has the title "A Revolutionary Devoid of Hate."

Bromberg told us this story emphasizing Vladeck's love for America and for 
working people. Bromberg wanted us to see the energy and spirit his 
grandfather's immigrant generation brought to America and how they found 
here democratic soil in which to plant their dreams and help the society 
improve. The Amalgamated Housing Coop is an inheritor of that spirit. 
Bromberg's presentation was an effort to keep it alive and pass it on.

It was a worthwhile afternoon, Sunday Feb 24, to be in Vladeck Hall and to 
hear the story of Vladeck and his humanism and socialism. The Amalgamated 
Education Committee sponsored this event after it was proposed last 
August. A paper was distributed, "Out of Our Past: Vladeck Hall - our 
Landmark" by Irving Vogel. Bromberg did a service bringing many stories 
and images from his grandfather's life. When he ended his talk he invited 
the audience to continue the discussion in the tradition of the tea room 
which was a main social activity at the Amalgamated Coop in its early 
years.

PS: As a footnote I wonder if the mystery of Baruch Charney Vladeck -- did 
he keep or compromise his revolutionary principles when he initiated and 
lead so many practical struggles -- is a clue to the Amalgamated Housing 
Cooperative. Is the Amalgamated strong because it is based on 
revolutionary principles or because it is a cooperative distant from the 
revolutionary principles of some of the early cooperators? 
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                                         by Jay Hauben 2/25/08