The persistence comes in Ghanaians waiting several years for an open apartment. Now, all of a sudden, you got a lot of Ghanian people saying, ‘Let me get an application…’ If the next 500 applications I got were Ghanian you’re gonna have 500 people on the waiting list.” “The list starts to populate with whatever demographic that would be. “One of the biggest marketing tools that you have are the people living in your building,” said Durante. That and a flood of applications from Ghanaian natives, exploiting RY Management’s policy of not closing the categorized waiting list.
On why there’s a large cluster of Ghanaians in two towers, Daniel Durante, property manager for RY Management, explained that the phenomenon comes down to persistence and word of mouth. That number stays with them throughout the time they’re on the list, and is given to them via typewritten letter sent to their current address. Each applicant is also given a reference number in sequential order. While the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development, which holds oversight of this Mitchell-Lama property, did not respond for a comment to this story, representatives for RY Management did, chronicling the level of HPD-mandated redundancies and safeguards that it abides by to ensure a fair process and no doctoring of its handwritten waiting lists. “If a lot of us who is intelligent, and know right from wrong, if we all seen it, there’s got to be some truth behind it,” said Caldwell. Hard proof on whether something nefarious at play takes a backseat over just an inkling. Tracey Towers is one of the oldest buildings falling under the Mitchell-Lama housing subsidy program intended for middle-class earners. The tenant also recalled a moment when a resident came demanding an appliance at one of the units only for management to find the tenant was not on the lease. And they had two or three families in the same apartment,” alleged another tenant who asked not to be named for fear of becoming a target, backed up Caldwell’s belief. “What they did was once one family came, then they sent for members of their family to stay in their apartments. Non-Ghanaian residents who were placed on the list suddenly had their deposits refunded, losing their place on the waiting list, said Caldwell.Ĭaldwell even pulled some of her friends over to confirm the long-running suspicion, drawing nods, wide eyes, and the rubbing of fingers that gesture the possibility that someone from management had been paid off. “They paid off-we don’t know what kind of money-but they paid off somebody here because they had blocked all those empty apartments that were supposed to be going to somebody else,” Caldwell told the Norwood News. In her estimate, the tenants received help from some kind of fixer to handle management. Residents wishing to secure an apartment would be placed on a waiting list.įor Caldwell, it seemed too much of a coincidence when she saw a line of prospective tenants, mostly from Ghana, waiting outside the management office. A roomy apartment in Tracey Towers-one of the oldest Mitchell-Lama buildings for middle-class earners-was highly sought after. The answers lie roughly 20 years ago after a block of units had been made available. The fun fact has extended beyond the looming towers and to published works, where one book, African & American: West Africans in Post-Civil Rights America, mentions Tracey Towers as being home to “literally hundreds of Ghanaians and became the basis for the development of the most recognizable physical enclave of this West African group in New York.”īut murmurs among long-time residents persist: how did one complex house hundreds of Ghanaians?įor Sallie Caldwell, a 40-year tenant and active member of the Bedford Park/Norwood community who’s not one to dabble in conspiracy theories, the coincidence is too much. And their ample presence-complete with their own tenants association and yearly events highlighting the colorful culture of the West African country-has earned it a cute name among residents: “Little Ghana.”
Tracey Towers is known for its robust representation of Ghanaian Americans new to the country or second or third generation. TRACEY TOWERS (PICTURED), a Mitchell-Lama complex, opened in 1972.
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