Ronek Park: Postwar Non-discriminatory Housing on Long Island | A New York Minute in History
This episode tells the story of Ronek Park, a non-discriminatory housing development built in 1950 in the village of North Amityville. Unlike the many housing developments created in the post-WWII U.S. that followed the practice of redlining and did not allow African American or Jewish people to buy homes, Ronek Park specifically marketed itself as allowing anyone to purchase a home regardless of race or creed. Marker of Focus: Ronek Park, Village of North Amityville, Suffolk County, Long Island Interviewees: Mary Cascone, Town of Babylon Historian and Eugene Burnett, Ronek Park resident and former Town of Babylon Police Department Sergeant. Further Reading: Dolores Hayden, Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth, 1820-2000, 2004. Kenneth T. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States, 1985. Gene Slater, Freedom to Discriminate: How Realtors Conspired to Segregate Housing and Divide America, 2021. Teaching Resources: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis: Neighborhood Redlining and Home Ownership Lesson. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: Understanding Redlining. National Geographic: Mapmaker: Redlining in the United States. Follow Along Devin: Welcome to A New York Minute in History. I'm Devin Lander, the New York State historian