History of Two Bridges Neighborhood Council

Two Bridges Neighborhood Council was founded in the 1950s in the working-class neighborhood of Manhattan bordered by the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges and the East Rive

At that time, the area was becoming one of the City's first racially integrated neighborhoods. Tensions were high and gang violence was common. Two Bridges was created to resolve racial conflicts and to serve as a channel for communication among settlement houses, churches, and community leaders.

In the 1960s, AT&T was planning to demolish a large block of residential houses on Madison Street to make way for a huge telephone switching station. The demolition would have forced hundreds of low-income families from their homes. Two Bridges hired its first social worker, organized the community, and worked out a plan to save the houses by moving the switching station to a commercial nonresidential location.

By the early 1970s, large-scale real estate development, which threatened to level a large swath of the neighborhood, was the principal obstacle to community harmony. The mission of Two Bridges evolved to focus on neighborhood preservation and the creation of affordable housing. Two Bridges became the most successful nonprofit affordable housing developer of in Lower Manhattan, creating more than 1,500 units of low- and moderate-income housing.

For more than half a century, Two Bridges Neighborhood Council's programs, projects, and activities have nurtured the unique character of the Lower East Side by building bridges among its diverse communities.

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