Brenda Beattie-Neuman Papers, 1986–2020

Brenda Beattie-Neuman was born of a Russian Jewish mother and a Shinnecock Indian father in Brooklyn, New York, in 1935. Brenda's birth mother held onto her for as long as she could, but eventually, faced with pressures on all sides, she had to give Brenda up for adoption. In 1940, at the age of 5, Brenda was adopted by a Black couple, Elizabeth and Henry Beattie, who lived in the Coops, or the United Workers Cooperative Colony, located at 2700 Bronx Park East. Brenda grew up in this community, which was overwhelmingly comprised of Eastern European working-class Jews but had a very small number of Black and interracial families as well. Indeed, the Coops was one of the earliest housing complexes in New York City to begin integrating—as early as 1935, when the Beatties and about a dozen other Black and interracial families moved in. During the 1940s and 1950s, the number of Black and interracial families in the complex increased somewhat, but out of 750 families, it is doubtful that the number of Black and interracial families ever reached 5% before the 1960s.

At any rate, Brenda continued living in the Coops when she began a career and a family. She raised her two daughters in the Coops and remained highly engaged in community affairs. Although other Coopniks (as residents were called) had spoken about landmarking the complex in the early 1980s, it was Brenda who was primarily responsible for getting the Coops added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986. As a real estate broker, Brenda was particularly well positioned and knowledgeable about such matters. It was shortly afterwards that Brenda moved away from New York City, but as of 2020 she continues to be a strong advocate for preserving all aspects of the history of the Coops—including the complicated racial dynamics that have been neglected in some discussions of the complex.

The core of this collection documents Brenda's successful landmarking efforts as well as the ways that people inside and outside the community responded to the landmark designation.

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