Between a so-called crime wave sweeping abolitionist rhetoric out of the mainstream discourse, and an emboldened real estate industry driving up rents across the boroughs, it would seem that New York is no longer reading a “tale of two cities.” Following years of unevenly-implemented progressive experiments, and one unforgettable summer of radical revolt, such a revanchist turn can feel a bit jarring. But in this moment, the story of one half-forgotten local politician rings familiar. It so happens, this figure was also, once upon a time, a prominent public architect. Vito Battista built a career riding the wave of public spending that reshaped New York City in the wake of the New Deal. Yet he would eventually, and forcefully, turn his back on the very idea of a “public,” championing the interests of private landlords while ridiculing racial integration efforts and forging a new, brash style of populist trolling that would fit comfortably within our own, post-Trump political landscape. [In this article], Rico Cleffi traces Battista’s unusual trajectory, from designing branch libraries to vitriolic right-wing politicking — an echo of the city’s own cyclical, reactionary tides, and a reminder of how closely New York’s complex politics are tied to the fate of its urban fabric.

Two advertisements for the Institute of Design Construction, circa mid-1950s
Two advertisements for the Institute of Design Construction, circa mid-1950s

By the time the Institute of Design and Construction (IDC) closed in 2015, Downtown Brooklyn was already replete with luxury condo towers and dominated by global capital and opaque real estate investment vehicles — a far cry from the days when the school trained thousands of builders, engineers, interior designers, and architects. Vito Battista’s trade school prided itself on generous scholarships and was known for helping architects to pass the city’s licensing exams (Philip Johnson took one of the IDC’s “cramming” courses). The IDC was but one facet in the life and work of Battista: a well-regarded public architect whose political and professional career spanned from the New Deal through the fiscal crisis years of the 1970s and the economic austerity of the ‘80s.

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Battista was no longer on the margins. Much of his ideology found mass acceptance with the election of Ronald Reagan, and, in 1984, Reagan himself appointed Battista to a national regulatory body: the Architectural and Transportation Compliance Board. Later that decade, Congressional Black Caucus member Edolphus Towns commemorated the “businessman, educator, architect, humanitarian, and civic leader,” who was a “personification of the tenets of the American Dream.” After his death at the age of 81 in 1990, the New York City AIA’s Oculus and the New York Times ran positive obituaries. The Times eulogized him as a populist champion, who “appeared to his critics and those stung by his barbs as a noisy obstructionist. But when he went up against the politicians, armed only with sheafs of papers and envelopes, he spoke out like a giant, a champion of the downtrodden, unafraid to challenge powerful interests.” Seen through the lens of the Reagan-Bush years, the revanchist crusader didn’t appear such an aberration.1

A stone’s throw away, tenants will soon be moving into Brooklyn’s first supertall — a 1,066-foot-high paean to wealth. The largest reimagining of Brooklyn since the Civic Center era is well underway. The days of grand public projects like those that Battista came up with are long gone, and his beloved small landlord barely exists anymore. His old neighborhood in Brooklyn is represented by a socialist-feminist Latina in the State Senate, but Battista’s political legacy lives on. A rhetoric and ideology similar to Battista’s has yielded major electoral results in recent years. Donald Trump owes an obvious debt to Battista. Traces of his influence can even be seen in New York Mayor Eric Adams, a law-and-order ex-cop who routinely invokes the plight of Battista’s mythical small landlord in opposition to rent freezes and pro-tenant legislation. Vito Battista would have enjoyed the irony of it all.

  • 1. A 2004 rezoning of Downtown Brooklyn designated the IDC as one of the buildings slated for seizure via Battista’s bête noire, eminent domain. Battista’s son Vincent, also an architect and head of the IDC, fought the city’s plans, and prevailed. A decade later, he sold the building and closed the Institute, relaunching it as the IDC Foundation. It is helmed by two of Battista’s children, who appear committed to funding education, and who have so far put a good chunk of the $28 million from the building sale toward millions in grants to schools including NYU, Cooper Union, and Columbia, which has a professorship bearing the IDC name. (All three schools are the type of large landlords Battista despised; Columbia and NYU are among the top private property owners in the city.) The old IDC building was razed to make way for a 24-story tower, scheduled for a 2023 completion.
Vito P. Battista (left), chairman of the education and registration committee of the Brooklyn chapter of the American Institute of Architects, presents a prize at the Institute’s annual design competition, 1951.
Vito P. Battista (left), chairman of the education and registration committee of the Brooklyn chapter of the American Institute of Architects, presents a prize at the Institute’s annual design competition, 1951. - Photographic print, CLUB_0138; Brooklyn Daily Eagle photographs, Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.