New York’s Latest Tenant Revolt Is Centuries in the Making

One of New York City’s first big landlords was Trinity Church, which with a 1705 land grant from Queen Anne (yes, the one from the movie), other grants from the city government, and a few gifts and purchases cobbled together a “church farm” along the Hudson River from what is now Fulton Street to what is now Christopher Street. Before long, it began transitioning from agricultural to commercial and residential purposes.

Trinity, an Episcopal church at the intersection of Wall Street and Broadway, remains one of the city’s biggest landlords, with a portfolio valued at $6 billion, which tells you something about New York City real estate. It was also subjected to an early form of rent control: a limitation on its total income imposed by lawmakers who belonged to Dutch Reformed and Presbyterian churches and didn’t want an Anglican church to get too rich. The limits shaped how it began to develop the neighborhood now known as TriBeCa. The church opted for long-term ground leases with relatively low rents, encouraging carpenters, grocers, and other artisans and tradespeople to build their combination homes/shops there. In 1797, a French visitor declared the area “infinitely more handsome” than the city’s older neighborhoods.