Paul "Pete" Rosenblum Papers, c.1940–2009

Paul “Pete” Rosenblum (nicknamed “Pete” from “Pete the Tramp” comic strips) was born March 5, 1927, in Brooklyn, New York, to Harry Rosenblum and Rose Prizand, both of whom had emigrated from Poland and were garment workers as well as lifelong members of the I.L.G.W.U.—his father was even shop steward at one point. Together with other like-minded working-class Jews in the needle trades, Harry and Rose, together with Paul, decided to move into the United Workers Cooperative Colony (typically called “The Coops” or “The Allerton Coops”) in 1929, shortly after its second complex was completed. Paul’s brother Herbert was born in 1936.

The Coops, located in The Bronx at 2700 and 2800 Bronx Park East, right along the edge of Bronx Park, was built over the course of two periods, 1926–1927 and 1927–1929, by an organization called the United Workers’ Association. This organization was comprised primarily of recently-arrived Eastern European Jewish immigrants in the needle trades with broadly communist sentiments, like Paul’s parents. It funded and built the Coops to provide affordable, cooperatively-owned housing to its members while forging a tight-knit community through various cooperatively-run services and cultural amenities. When finished, the Coops housed 750 apartments and about 3000 residents. Due to financial woes brought on by the Depression and exacerbated by credit discrimination and internal disagreements, the Coops was forced to become a regular rental complex in 1943. Even so, the community retained its cooperative and politically engaged culture until at least the 1970s.

Paul spent his formative years in the Coops and lived off and on in the community until September 1945, when he began his undergraduate studies at Cornell University, where he earned a B.S. from the School of Industrial Labor Relations in February 1948. He was a member of the Communist Party as a young adult and, among various assignments (in Chicago, Newark, etc.), he was sent to Birmingham, Alabama, to organize workers against segregation after he finished his undergraduate studies at Cornell.

When Paul returned to New York for good from his assignments, he met and married Doris Koppelman of The Bronx in 1956. They had a large wedding reception with over 400 guests attending. Paul eventually found work as a typographer, proofreader, and computer programmer in the Composing Room at the New York Times, a job he held for 31 years until his retirement in 1990. While working at the New York Times, Paul attended Columbia University part-time, where he earned an M.A. in American History and a Ph.D. in African History. After receiving his Ph.D., Paul taught African and African American Studies part-time at City College, Baruch, Columbia University, and other institutions of higher learning in the Great New York City area.

When Paul and Doris first married, they lived in the Lower East Side, though they soon moved to the Upper West Side. In 1967, the Rosenblums were among the first cooperators in a new cooperative on the Upper West Side called Stryker’s Bay Apartments, located at 66 West 94th Street. Paul and Doris had two children, Peter and Beth. Doris, for her part, became the Manhattan Borough Historian and was involved in various activist causes throughout her life, including serving on the Local Community Board, educational reform, and advocacy for cooperative housing through the Mitchell-Lama Program. When Doris died in 1996, the stretch of 94th Street and Columbus Avenue in front of Stryker’s Bay was renamed “Doris Rosenblum Way” in her honor. Throughout their lives, the Rosenblums have been untiring advocates for justice and continued to get together on a regular basis with many of Paul’s friends from the Coops. Indeed, in 2008, Paul had a major role in the documentary At Home In Utopia, in which he spoke at length about the impact of his growing up in The Coops. At 93 years old, Paul remains engaged in history, politics, computer technology, and popular culture.

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