Doris Rosenblum, Longtime West Side Activist

By Steven Wishnia

Doris Rosenblum, a longtime activist for affordable housing, health care, and education on the Upper West Side, died August 29 after a short illness. She was 71.

Rosenblum, who moved to the Upper West Side in 1959, was involved in almost four decades' worth of movements against those who would have packed the neighborhood with oversized, overpriced developments -- from Robert Moses to Donald Trump. She also was a key advocate for building the Strycker's Bay Apartments middle and low-income housing on Columbus Avenue and the Euclid Hall housing for the elderly on West 86th Street and Broadway.

"Her work helped maintain the Upper West Side as a racially and economically mixed neighborhood," said the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development's Weekly Reader. The newsletter also praised her ability to work as an advocate, organizer, and activist -- roles that are not always interchangeable.

Rosenblum was also vice-president of New York State Tenants & Neighbors Coalition and co-chair of the Mitchell-Lama Residents Coalition, whose newsletter credited her with revitalizing "the then stagnant organization" after becoming co-chair in 1990. "The loss is profound," it wrote. "Doris was the Coalition's moving force, dynamic, energetic, and steadfast in her commitment and support of affordable housing. She moved through the bureaucratic maze with knowledge and determination."

She spent nearly three years working with the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development to win tenants in Mitchell-Lama buildings taken over by HUD in the 1970s -- and, by extension, tenants in other HUD-assisted housing -- greatly increased rights and abilities to challenge rent increases.

A member of Community Board 7 on the Upper West Side from 1971 to 1983, she became district manager in 1983, serving in the post for seven years. She also headed the neighborhood branch of the United Parents Association and the Strycker's Bay Neighborhood Council, which she helped found.

"Absolutely nothing intimidated her," former CB7 chair Ethel Sheffer told the New York Times. "It was amazing to me how she did not lose her zeal."