The Killing Fields of East New York: The First Subprime Mortgage Scandal, a White-Collar Crime Spree, and the Collapse of an American Neighborhood

Journalist Horn (Damnation Island) explains how greedy fraudsters took advantage of a 20th-century federal housing program in this eye-opening account. From the 1950s to the ’60s, Brooklyn’s East New York neighborhood transitioned from a thriving middle-class immigrant community to “a declining and neglected” neighborhood “where children were shot and killed,” Horn writes. She attributes the blight mostly to racist real estate practices, including redlining and blockbusting (the process of convincing white families to sell their homes below market value by preying on fears of rising crime rates and declining schools), which the Johnson administration attempted to address with the 1968 Fair Housing Act. That initiative was subverted, however, by banks that committed widespread mortgage fraud in the ’70s with the help of corrupt Federal Housing Administration employees. Drawing on extensive research and interviews with several families impacted by the scandal, Horn dramatizes the resulting investigations by the U.S. Attorney’s office and notes that a similar lack of oversight led to the 2007-08 subprime mortgage crisis. Her vivid descriptions of East New York’s descent, and her persuasive identification of the forces behind it, are as stirring as they are infuriating. This sobering account shines a vital light on an underdiscussed chapter of recent American history. (Jan.)