Most historians consider Jimmy Carter one of the best ex-presidents in U.S. history. His one term in office saw economic stagnation along with runaway inflation, oil shortages and price shocks, the Iranian Revolution, and the taking of dozens of U.S. embassy personnel in Tehran as hostages by the new revolutionary regime. He lost reelection in 1980 to Ronald Reagan in a landslide. But rather than go away to paint pictures or make millions of dollars in speaking and consulting fees, the rejected president and his wife, Rosalynn, devoted the rest of their lives to making the world a better place. He monitored elections in a myriad of nations transitioning from autocracy to democracy and he and his wife raised money to eliminate deadly diseases in Africa and Asia. But the Carters are best known for their work with Habitat for Humanity, an organization founded in Georgia in the mid-1970s when Jimmy Carter served as the state’s governor.
Habitat for Humanity was founded by former Christian missionaries to create quality affordable housing for people living in poverty. Volunteers from the community would work alongside skilled tradespeople and members of the families that would live in the finished dwellings. Habitat for Humanity houses are now sheltering people throughout the U.S. and around the world, including people who have survived natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005. In New York City, Habitat for Humanity has restored entire buildings.
Between 1984 and 1986, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter came to the East Village multiple times to work on Habitat for Humanity’s first urban apartment building, and the organization’s first project in New York City. The Mascot Flats building at 742 East 6th St., between Avenue C and Avenue D, was burned out and a center for drug dealing. The Carters climbed ladders of the gutted building, and Rosalynn worked on the plumbing. It was their first hands-on project, and they were joined by hundreds of volunteers along with the people who would make Mascot Flats their home, purchasing their apartments through the Housing Development Finance Corporation. More than a thousand HFDC coops still provide affordable housing in the East Village, the Lower East Side, Harlem, Washington Heights, Clinton Hill, Crown Heights, and Williamsburg.
East 6th Street is already a famous and scenic street in the East Village, worth a visit whether you’re a resident of the city or a tourist. Last month, the block of East 6th between Avenues C and D was designated Jimmy Carter Way to honor the ex-president and world citizen who died in December 2024 at the age of 100. The block, and the building that sits on it, honors a political leader who dedicated his life to the causes of peace, justice, and making the world a place where every human being can thrive.
