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Page 6, PHOEMA, May ^U, r./H ililfltlH*)%u00bbHlUHIimUM)tll IIMB Organization Key to GainingSecurity for HomeownersBYKIPZEGERSThis is the story of how a Park Slope homeowner became, for the first time in his life, involved in community politics. It is also the story of how the deep feelings of a man for his community can burst forth, making him a key actor in that area. It is the story of Bob Caire, life-long resident of 9th Street. And it is, in part, the story of a community organization, the Park Slope Preservation Council.Caire was sittin g in his kitchen. The back door was open on a garden, and he was talking about his house. He has lived in this house since 1927, when he was born. It is a house that has been in his family since 1905. That is the kind of stability that can lead either to class snobbery or to a deep sense of belonging.The kitchen is spacious and cool. It is all brick and fine, old wooden doors and cabinets. Claire is talking about how he has been working on this kitchen, how he likes to put what money he has into the house. He is a %u201c specialist clerk%u201d on Wall Street, and not a man with money to play around with. The wainscoting on his kitchen wall documents this.%u201c I was passing Methodist Hospital one afternoon, and I saw they were beginning to take down the buildings on the expansion block,%u2019 %u2019 he said. %u201c This made me furious, so I went over there.%u201d People were coming out of the buildings with lumber and stuff, so I asked what was going on. Someone said that all the stuff will be lost in demolition if it isn%u2019t salvaged. So I got the wainscoting for my wall.%u201d But it is an ironic souvenir, for Bob Caire was one of the leaders ofthe fight to keep those buildings standing.We sit drinking iced tea and talking of Bob Caire%u2019s metamorphosis into a community leader. %u201c In 1969 I had decided things were bad, both in New York and on Wall Street. So we, Marilyn and the children and I, took off for Indianapolis where we had relatives and where I was, would you believe it, hot-shot new car salesmen. And we all hated it there.%u201d For Bob Caire, the city was looking better and better.He returned in June, 1971, at about the same tim e that Methodist Hospital was announcing its plans to expand. The Caires listened and watched and began to worry. Their fear was that this expansion, taking in sections of 5th and 6th Streets, was just a beginning. Marilyn Caire attended a meeting on the expansion. And Bob Caire met Dan Leahy, a member of the Tenants of Methodist Hospital Association.By August, 1972, Caire was worried enough to begin ringing doorbells for the first time in his life, talking with people on 7th through 11th Streets. Bob Caire was concerned about the tenants Methodist Hospital was attempting to remove from its expansion sight, and he was concerned that the Hospital would begin buying up houses on other blocks the way it had on 5th and 6th Streets.Late in August a group of the people Caire had canvassed met and decided to form an organization to support the tenants of the Hospital-owned buildings. It would also work to preserve its m embers%u2019 own homes. Members would attempt to hold a dialogue with the Hospital and work to have their area added to the ParkThe YWCA of BrooklynPrivate Health dub for Men & WomenFeaturing...Luxurious heated pool-distance swimming Gym, Jogging track, Tennis practice,Table tennis Hand Ball, Paddle Ball,Paddle tennis.Fully equipped exercise room Total privacy in showers, lockers, dressing rooms.P r n T o c c io r m l n o r c n n n l < ; iin c a r v k in n ' ~ %u2018 l ' ' \in conditioning.SaunaHealth Club DirectorHy Schaffer: 875-1190$150.00 per year.m m u A tin w v i i i l i v V* %u00ab r. i u II e m ux '%u00bb*%u00ab/%u25a0> A I I - ..litrvvon ntrdin30 Third Avenue, Brooklyn,YWCASlope Historic District. The organization was named the Park Slope Preservation Council.At that point in his life Caire had never belonged to a political group. But he had always liked politics, feeling that the big city agencies were failing and that block associations could fill a vacuum on the local level.Caire remembers how one future member of the Council had reacted to his fervent bellringing. %u201c You were talking like a crazy man,%u201d the man had said, but something about it made me come out anyway.%u201d %u201c I was so agitated,%u201d Caire says, %u201c trying to figure out how to convince them this was serious.%u201dAnd the Park Slope Preservation Council was serious. They met with Hospital representatives. They attended numerous com munity meetings. On October 21,1972, they held the largest rally in Park S lo p history, a candle-light vigil of 500 Park Slopers. As Marily Caire said at the time (The PHOENIX, 10/26/72): %u2018 %u2018We%u2019re not against health care. W e%u2019re against Methodist building a major medical center in our community, tearing down brownstones and erecting highrise staff housing and parking lots.%u201dThe Preservation Council managed to get almost 5,000 residents to sign a petition objecting to the closing of 6th Street, a prerequisite to the ex%u00ad| The OHnsnumfy Bookstore of Pork Sope || will open a good bookstore on JI Montague Street |N. Y, 11217< m n u m D E L B d u mSENSITIVE PORTRAYAL OF CHILDREN THROUGHPHOTOGRAPHY643*9654 )--------G com e Sale - ing with u s!'/a %u00a9ffon a selectiono f s m a s h i n gSpringdresses.C a s u a l H u t r lf1 40 M ontague Sf.pansion. On February 26, 1973 they presented a detailed proposal for inclusion of their area in the Historic District, and won Hospital support for that request. On August 8 they helped plan and participated in another vigil. This time 150 people expressed their opposition to Methodist%u2019s expansion plans.A short time later the expansion site was demolished and cleared. And some of the wainscoting from a building on 6th Street was on its way to the Caire kitchen. But Methodist%u2019s tenants had also won a decent relocation allowance. The residents of 7th through 11th Streets had gained a fair degree of security for their homes. But a new struggle had developed, this time over an Alternative Expansion Plan developed for the community by Ron and Yvette Schiffman of Pratt Institute.During the past months the Preservation Council has been less active, but lately Caire has been out canvassing his area. His feeling is, %u201c We need to get people involved.%u201d The Council has some new items on its agenda: to press its petition on the Historic District; to work for the revitalization of 7th Avenue south of 9th Street where there are serious narcotic problems; and to work for a tenant/homeowner alliance to set up some form of real-estate code of ethics to try to deal w ith problems of speculators, slumlords, block-busting and substandard housing. %u201c I believe in helping people,%u201d says Bob Caire as he sits at his family sized kitchen table where the iced-tea is gone and the icecubes melted.fy . pnntmaKing supplies photo supplies \Af'vrtte Ave.lo > -.s*;.-..V n > > * ? $ i t s -m w ,y > %u00bb ' * - ***- r v ffv ................... i * hi iv . r ;