Word: levittowner
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Future Slums? The most frequent criticism of Levittown, and of other projects like it, is that it is the "slum of the future." Says Bill Levitt: "Nonsense." Many city planners agree with him, because they approve of Levittown's uncluttered plan and its plentiful recreational facilities. Nevertheless, in helping to solve the housing problem, Levittown has created other problems: new schools, hospitals, and sewage facilities will soon be needed; its transportation is woefully inadequate, even by Long Island standards...
...most Levittowners think the disadvantages are far outweighed by the advantages. Said ex-G.I. Wilbur Schaetzl, who lived with his wife and a relative in a one-room apartment before he moved to Levittown: "That was so awful I'd rather not talk about it. Getting into this house was like being emancipated." Bill Levitt puts it in his own brash way: "In Levittown 99% of the people pray...
...Levitt had plenty; he had bought Western timberlands and a mill to supply him. When nails were short, he set up his own nail-making plant, made enough to sell to outsiders. When Congress lifted a veterans' priority clause, Levitt announced that vets would still come first at Levittown, thus had a potent lobby to work for him whenever he ran up against local building restrictions or Washington bureaucrats...
Levitt & Sons built about 1,000 houses in 1946 while quietly picking up property for their Levittown project. Before the war, the land cost only $300 an acre; now it has soared to $3,600. "The potato farmers," says Bill Levitt, "got rich...
...building industry, shot through with featherbedding union practices, they had another advantage: neither the subcontractors nor Levitt's organization is unionized and there has been no great pressure from unions. Legend has it that once, when unionists were picketing Levittown, one of the pickets left the line to look at a house. He got so interested he ended by buying one. Says Bill Levitt: "I'm not against unions. I just think we can build houses faster without them...