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Before the end of 1978, residents of Manhattan's Upper West Side will see an encouraging sign that the struggle against urban blight is making progress and that the area will be maintained as a viable middle class neighborhood.
The sign will be the beginning of the rehabilitation of Hotel Marseille on the corner of West 103rd St. and Broadway. The ten-story hotel had been abandoned and boarded up for five years, following many years in which it was one of the worst SRO (single room occupancy) sore spots of the West Side. The hotel is scheduled to re-open as federally-funded housing for the elderly, in the spring of 1980.
Many of the Jewish elderly now live in delapidated tenements in the area. Some of these will be able to occupy a substantial percentage of the 31 studios and 103 one-bedroom apartments in the refurbished building. Although the cost per room in this building is valued at between $450 and $500, the tenant is required to pay only one-fourth of his annual income. The difference is made up by federal subsidy. Ten per cent of the units will be equipped especially for the handicapped. Some of the features of the building will be emergency buzzers in all bathrooms, hallway sprinklers and 24-hour security at the building entrance. A social director, under a Jewish Association for Services to the Aged (JASA) supervisor, will conduct recreational activities.
Community action triumph
The rehabilitation of the once elegant neo-French Baroque hotel represents a trumph for community action. Members of the 102nd-103rd Streets Block Association went from door-to-door canvassing signatures and funds for the project. By taking one dollar to $25 donations they collected more than $2,000 toward the $20,000 seed-money fund needed to cover costs such as taxes and architectural and legal fees until federal and mortgage monies became available. The West Side Federation for Senior Housing was formed as a non-profit corporation to develop homes for senior citizens on...