Nearly four decades have passed since 10 men and one woman, ceremonial shovels in hand, lined up for a groundbreaking photograph on a gravelly corner lot where crumbling tenements once stood.

That noontime gathering on a sunny Nov. 5, 1972 – the day before the ’72 presidential election – is etched in city history as the official start of the Bronstein Apartments.

But the decade before is credited with – or blamed for, depending on one’s perspective – giving rise to Bronstein.

The low-income housing we know today as the Bronstein Apartments came about as a component of one of Nashua’s three major urban renewal projects.

Alternately tabbed the Myrtle Street Urban Renewal project and Myrtle Street Redevelopment project – named after one of the neighborhood’s busiest streets – development progressed at a snail’s pace and was fraught at nearly every turn with bickering and stalling. The initiative finally got the go-ahead in September 1967 – but it would be almost five years before ground was broken and seven years before the Bronstein Apartments were ready for occupancy.

Rooted in urban renewal

The project’s roots go back to 1961, when city Planning Board Chairman Oliver Dambroise announced “urban renewal here will be done in various stages because of a lack of low-rent housing units” in the city.

At the time, the city’s first federally subsidized housing project, Vagge Village, was under construction on the south side of Burke Street. Overseen by the Nashua Housing Authority and named for then-Mayor Mario J. Vagge, it consisted of six two-story buildings that featured apartments geared toward larger families.

Work progressed on schedule, and Vagge Village was dedicated in February 1962. Just five months later, perhaps buoyed by the success of Vagge Village, aldermen authorized that the Housing Authority prepare surveys and plans for two new projects – Myrtle Street (Bronstein) and the Park Street redevelopment projects.

Mayor Dennis J. Sullivan, a postal worker and city alderman who in the 1965 city election upset Vagge, a four-term mayor, fought the Myrtle Street project from the start. In fact, Sullivan vetoed the Board of Aldermen’s 12-2 vote to OK the project, arguing it was too large an area and that its boundaries would need to be reined in before he even considered supporting the project.

According to Telegraph stories, Sullivan also argued that it wasn’t in Nashua’s best interest to accept federal dollars, saying Nashuans were “being misguided by the federal government as to what we should do with our city.”

For many connected to the project, though, it was difficult to find a downside to an arrangement by which the federal allocation – $1.5 million – would cover more than three quarters of the project’s cost. Nashua would pay roughly $420,000 – $34,000 of which came from tax credits.

Vagge, a longtime low-income housing proponent, stayed involved. Speaking at one of scores of public hearings and meetings, he said, “anytime our city can get federal funds, we should.” He also saw new public housing complexes as a practical solution for low-income people living in dilapidated apartments: “It’s unfortunate that the city has so many blighted areas,” but the problem “can be corrected in orderly fashion.”

About a month after Sullivan’s veto, alderman voted 13-2 to override it.

The long road

Months of continued wrangling turned into years. The area, then part of Ward 9, had to be rezoned. Neighbors objected. Allegations that the city mishandled the High Street redevelopment project, which preceded Myrtle Street, were trotted out at meetings.

The late Judge Aaron Harkaway, a lawyer at the time, represented a group of downtown business owners. “People weren’t handled well” during the High Street project, Harkaway said. “If nothing is done, businesses and property owners in Myrtle Street area will be affected. Businesses will die on the vine.”

Also being heard was a sizeable group of people generally opposed to urban renewal and “housing projects” who nevertheless favored the Myrtle Street project. “The spread of blight is moving faster than the city’s ability to arrest it,” one said. Urban renewal “is the only realistic solution … if blight is not arrested it will spread.”

Housing Authority member George Gingras, then a former Ward 9 alderman, claimed that “discord among city officials” was causing the “lack of low-rent housing for large families.”

And so it went, until 1972, when the elusive ducks at long last aligned. The Housing Authority opened a relocation office at Ledge and Pine streets. One at a time, the deteriorating tenements – built more than 100 years earlier to house vast numbers of immigrant workers at nearby Nashua Manufacturing – fell to steamshovels.

Although completed about seven months past schedule, the new Bronstein Apartments welcomed the complex’s first tenants in May 1974.

Less than three years later, storm clouds began gathering over the Housing Authority, and in particular, the veteran NHA commissioner for whom the Bronstein Apartment complex was named.

By late 1977, the authority became the focus of two investigations, one surrounding a three-year audit of its handling of funds and the other, a total U.S. Housing and Urban Development compliance review of its operations.

At the center of the maelstrom was Samuel P. Bronstein, an 18-year commissioner and former chairman. According to Telegraph stories, Bronstein was among those targeted by newly elected Mayor Maurice L. Arel, who vowed during his campaign to “clean house at the problem-ridden NHA” if elected.

Bronstein at first resisted Arel’s suggestion that he resign, The Telegraph reported. But in early 1978, Commissioner Bronstein tendered his resignation, saying, “I regret I cannot serve on this board any longer.” Though fellow board members showed their support by voting 3-1 to table his move to resign, Bronstein said his decision was final.

He also praised mayors Vagge and Sullivan, and seemed to take a shot at Arel when he described Vagge and Sullivan as “honest men seriously interested in people. They aided the Housing Authority, they did not tear it down,” Bronstein said.

Negative image

By the mid-1980s, the Bronstein complex was already in need of improvement.

Former NHA director Joseph Abrams criticized the Bronstein complex, saying it was not a good living environment.

“A general feeling of not caring about the development,” Abrams said about the tenants. They have “a give-up attitude.”

Abrams was quoted in a September 1985 Telegraph story that explored city officials’ two-fold initiative to upgrade the buildings and grounds and reverse the negative image the apartments took on in its early years.

As crews carried out the physical aspects – new appliances, flooring, plumbing, kitchen cabinets and fresh paint along with new windows, doors and security entrances – Abrams and others focused on creating an atmosphere that would inspire residents to take care of their homes and make the complex a better place to live.

Buoyed by what he saw as an overall attitude transformation, Abrams praised residents for wanting to become stakeholders and their willingness to step up and get involved in everything from reporting suspicious activity to police and holding their neighbors accountable for the condition of their apartments.

“We have seen dramatic changes,” Abrams told The Telegraph. “The residents feel better about the place and the authority’s management of it.”

“We promised we would do something about it, and we did. As a result, there is a nice rapport between residents and the authority that didn’t exist before,” he said.

Gradual improvements

Behind the efforts of residents like Netti Raby, who in 1990 was Bronstein’s housing manager and president of its new residents association, the stigma of “project” living and the complex’s battered image were gradually melting away.

It didn’t happen overnight and it wasn’t easy, by any means, said Abrams and several residents interviewed by former Telegraph reporter Michelle Farrell for a July 1990 story.

Raby said her impetus for getting involved in the first place was the day the parents of one of her children’s friends canceled the child’s visit after learning the Rabys lived in Bronstein.

Until “people open their minds,” Raby said, “the stigma of being a ‘project kid’ will remain.”

Many residents interviewed said things were indeed changing for the better at Bronstein. Tougher admission standards were put into place. New policies were created, such as evicting chronically untidy residents and those charged with dealing drugs out of their apartments.

Confrontations and fights decreased. The basketball court, once presided over by bullies who lived outside the complex, became a peaceful playground. And police reported a five-year overall drop in crime.

Today, there are indications that Bronstein may not exist past its 40th birthday. The 17-acre, inner-city project conceived, born and weened on controversy may very well meet its demise under similar circumstances.

Dean Shalhoup can be reached at 594-6443 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com. Also follow Shalhoup on Twitter (@Telegraph_DeanS).