Author Topic: 1938 Red-Lining Map - Zoomable  (Read 16301 times)

Offline ericmartindale

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Offline ericmartindale

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Re: 1938 Red-Lining Map - Zoomable
« Reply #1 on: August 16, 2020, 02:47:17 AM »
Used by banks to discriminate against whole neighborhoods when it comes to lending.  Interesting that they appear to discriminate equally against Black and Italian neighborhoods, see the First Ward of Hackensack as well as Lodi.

Note also the line around Passaic Street in central Hackensack, and that must have been the boundary of the Black neighborhood in 1938. The map showed both sides of Passaic Street as being good (those blocks of Passaic Street had an even better rating than the northern parts of the Fairmount Section of Hackensack), but both sides of Stanley Place were red-lined. The red-lining zig-zagged on Park Street, also interesting.

From a historical perspective, the map says a lot, and perhaps explains housing and development patterns in different neighborhoods. If buyers and developers are not able to secure affordable financing, this reflects on how much new construction or rehab occurs.  In this way, the banks decide which areas prosper, and which areas suffer.

Offline ericmartindale

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Re: 1938 Red-Lining Map - Zoomable
« Reply #2 on: August 18, 2020, 03:00:14 AM »
The yellow areas explain a lack of multi-unit development during that era. Yellow areas were considered by the banks to be "imminent to decline." If you look at what areas of Hackensack are red and yellow, it's a map of where multi-unit development WAS NOT built from 1938 through the 1940's, and perhaps a few years more. So for instance, you have multi-unit buildings from those years built in the southern part of Fairmount where the banks said OK to financing by builders (Hamilton & Franklin, on Clinton west of Clarendon, and the NE corner Clinton & Grand), but all multi-unit development stopped in the vicinity of Anderson Park (that was designated as a yellow area), and nothing multi-unit was built in the yellow areas further north in Fairmount. I wonder that the banks thought the northern parts of Fairmount were imminent to decline because houses being built were small and lots of working class Irish were moving in (say around Main & Catalpa), but Passaic Street, Hamilton Place, and Clinton Place (& vicinity) had much larger houses, and they were relatively new, and more white collar than blue collar, and at the time there were many more families of White Protestant background that the banks favored. The red-lining map provides a lot of evidence in terms of development patterns in Hackensack.

Offline ericmartindale

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Re: 1938 Red-Lining Map - Zoomable
« Reply #3 on: August 18, 2020, 03:05:55 AM »
Notice also that Borg's Woods and what would become the Byrne/Brook Street subdivision were left un-rated and uncolored on the map. What did that mean in terms of a builder wanting financing? I bet it wasn't easy to get financing in an un-rated area. The Byrne/Brook subdivision wasn't built until about 1950. Borg's Woods was purchased by John Borg in 1939 at a sheriff's auction, which was 3 years after he bought the mansion at Summit & Fairmount, and only one year after the red-lining map came out.  Most of northern Bergen County was also un-rated, and development was lack-luster until after World War II.  Perhaps the red-lining map had a lot of impact for about 7 years, and some impact for another 5 years. And by the 1950's, it didn't have much meaning in terms of builders getting financing.

 

anything