9. 100,000 applicants applied to live in Stuyvesant Town upon its grand opening
With 11,250 apartments, StuyTown could host more than 20,000 residents across its 80 acres. However, when the first completed building opened, around 100,000 applicants wanted to live in this newly minted neighborhood. Though thousands had lived in the neighborhood before the construction of StuyTown, few of the previous residents could afford to live in the development that had taken over their tenements. Even for those residents who were veterans and therefore received priority in the application, rent prices would remain a difficulty.
As a result of rent prices and veteran priority in the application process, the first residents to move into the housing development were two soldiers and their families. An apartment within StuyTown’s red brick buildings became theirs on August 1, 1947.