The city has been thwarted in two attempts to bar tenants from using a street near their Lower East Side project to demonstrate against the New York City Housing Authority’s deregulation scheme.

The rally went off as scheduled on Saturday, April 26, after a week of legal volleying between NYCHA and lawyers for the Jacob Riis Houses tenants association.

For a month, tenant groups and housing advocates have been organizing to oppose the city’s request to free NYCHA from federal public-housing regulations—which could allow the authority to rent to richer tenants, disregard some rent caps for low-income tenants and even sell some buildings to private developers.

Val Orselli, executive director of the Cooper Square Committee, said the idea of a meeting was hatched in early April by his organization, the Riis tenant association, and a Lower East Side coalition of public-housing tenants.

"We are planning to inform tenants of the potential dangers they face with NYCHA," he said. "Dangers like them being able to charge higher rents, opening apartments up for families with significantly higher incomes, elimination of tenant grievance procedures. Basically, we wanted people to know that deregulation is part of a movement to privatize public housing."

On Monday, April 21, city lawyers claimed that NYCHA had rejected the application because event leaders wanted to use the rally for partisan political purposes. On Wednesday, State Supreme Court Justice Helen Freedman shot that argument down. Then, early on Friday, a team of three NYCHA lawyers filed an appeal—a move that, for the moment, barred the demonstration.

"There will not be any meeting," NYCHA spokesperson Ruth Colon said late that afternoon.

"I am willing to get arrested if that means I’ll be able to use my First Amendment rights," responded Carlos Gonzalez, a Riis tenant leader. Moments later, he learned that another state judge had permitted the demonstration—but only allowed Riis tenants to attend.

"The whole thing was crazy. They had three lawyers working full-time just to keep a group of tenants from meeting," said Judith Goldiner, the Legal Aid lawyer who represented the Riis tenants. "The New York City Housing Authority is crazy."

And during the week of fervid lawyering, road crews began tearing up the disputed pavement. "I walked by and I saw the sidewalk being torn up by whatever you call those big, loud machines," Goldiner said.