The New Policies and the Early Residents of Amsterdam Houses

NYCHA documents make clear the impact this changed admission policy had on who got to move into the Amsterdam Houses.  33,038 families applied to live in the Amsterdam Houses.  Of those, only 1091 families were able to moved of those, all but 22 were veterans (see yelow below).

This change in the policy also shaped the racial composition of the development.   The new policy meant many more whites than minorities moved into the Amsterdam Houses. 739 of the first residents were white, 260 were black, 1 was asian, and 82 were classified as “Other.”  “Other” was NYCHA’s catch-all category that generally meant Puerto Ricans,  for whom  NYCHA would not create their own census category until 1962 (see red below).