Opinion: My Family Built a Life in NYC. Today’s Zoning Wouldn’t Allow It.

“The City Council should enthusiastically approve the 10,000 new homes that will come with the MSMX plan,” the author writes. “More homes and the increased affordability they bring is vital to all New Yorkers, including to the garment industry still present in Midtown.”

The City Council will soon vote on the Midtown South Mixed Use (MSMX) rezoning to allow nearly 10,000 new homes in Midtown Manhattan, enabling density that once defined New York before being capped in recent decades. The plan is remarkable in part because it isn’t new: it’s just a return to what we used to do well.

Some find the idea of more homes in the Garment District controversial—a sacrifice of the neighborhood’s industrial character for a residential one. But the rezoning doesn’t prevent garment work, which can continue to thrive in place. It simply legalizes more homes, mostly through building conversions and new construction on underused lots.

More importantly, opponents of the plan miss that the garment industry’s success isn’t due to the fixed location of factories and showrooms, but rather to the accessibility of the city to the manufacturers, designers, and salespeople working in them. I know it because it’s my family’s story. We climbed out of poverty through garment work—not because the industry stayed in one place, but because New York neighborhoods changed to adapt to changing times. 

My grandparents were born in Brooklyn a century ago, when the subway cost a nickel and there was no Empire State Building to see from across the river. They met at James Madison High School in radio production class; after my grandfather returned from World War II, he started a womenswear company and named it after his new bride, Aileen.

In the 1920s, New York City was building enough new homes to keep up with population growth—keeping rents from skyrocketing, even as buildings did. The five boroughs averaged nearly 73,000 new homes a year. 

My immigrant great-grandfather earned a meager salary milling cotton for clothing. Still, he could afford a home on Brooklyn’s Avenue T—albeit a cramped one, with three rooms shared by a family of 10. His son could rent a room for his family of five while pursuing his entrepreneurial dream across the river (though subway tokens had risen to 15 cents per ride).

In the 1950s, Aileen’s shirts and skirts were sewn on 38th Street—skyscrapers now visible outside—and displayed to buyers at a showroom on 38th and Broadway. As the company grew, it provided our family a ladder out of poverty. 

But during the 1960s, New York started cracking down on the very homes that had ensured it was an engine of opportunity for strivers from Brooklyn to Boise to Budapest—a place to make a fortune, not just spend one. New zoning rules banned many types of development; eventually, 40 percent of all buildings in Manhattan would have been illegal to build.

Neighborhoods adapted. Indeed, Aileen’s first-ever site was on 18th Street—the same block my parents later moved to as newlyweds, into a cheap two-bedroom apartment that had once been a tailoring factory.

When they met, my mother was an artist and my father was a cab driver. As their neighborhood became increasingly expensive, the middle-class families we lived alongside were replaced by private equity professionals and hedge fund managers.

Back then our family could afford it, reaping the rewards of reuse. My brother and I grew up finding pins between floorboards discolored by ancient industrial sewing machines while benefiting from the vibrancy and diversity of lower Manhattan.

Home prices have continued to rise as production has slowed to a trickle. Between 2010 and 2023, we averaged fewer than 22,000 homes per year—less than a third of 1920s rates. 

Demand is outpacing supply. Just 1.4 percent of apartments are vacant. Rents are rising seven times faster than wages. Record numbers of our neighbors are sleeping in shelters or on the street. More are fleeing to red states where the cost of living is manageable.

I co-founded Abundance New York—a political community of 3,000 New Yorkers demanding bolder action on housing, transit, and climate—because I want more families to have access to stories like ours. That starts with addressing the housing crisis. 

Democrats from Kathy Hochul to Zohran Mamdani acknowledge that abundant housing is the path to broad-based affordability. Meanwhile, experts point to housing density as our best tool to reduce emissions and combat climate change. 

Thankfully, the State Legislature recently raised the cap on density imposed in the 1960s, once again giving New York the tools to add needed housing. But as any good tailor knows, a sewing machine is only as good as the vision and willingness to put it to work.

The City Council should enthusiastically approve the 10,000 new homes that will come with the MSMX plan. Further, they should maximize the allowable density, demonstrating that New York is willing to build homes like we used to—when the city was an engine of opportunity rather than a playground for the ultra-rich. More homes and the increased affordability they bring is vital to all New Yorkers, including to the garment industry still present in Midtown.

We cannot keep neighborhoods frozen in amber but expect to retain New York’s accessibility and dynamism. If he were starting his company today, my grandfather might not have a factory on 18th Street or a showroom on 38th Street, but those aren’t the changes that concern me. 

Given an average rent of $3,800, he wouldn’t be living in New York at all.

Ryder Kessler is co-executive director of Abundance New York. In 2022, he was a candidate in the Democratic primary for Assembly District 66, covering parts of downtown Manhattan. Kessler is a fourth-generation New Yorker who serves on Manhattan’s Community Board 2. (Opinions expressed in this op-ed do not reflect the views of CB2.)