Get Off Your Ass and Block Billionaire Developers With This 90-Year-Old Retiree

While you were binge-watching Love is Blind, this 90-year-old retired math teacher was blocking a wealthy real estate developer from constructing a massive new building.

The New York Post reports on Olive Freud, my new local hero, who led a community effort to get 20 floors (20 floors!) removed from an Upper West Side condo building. Why? Because the rich don’t get to own every good view!

“I love urban life but there’s a limit,” she said. “Is it only rich people who get to see the sun and the sky and the air—and all we get are the shadows?” Damn!

Freud has lived in the neighborhood for 60 years and has worked for the past three years to lobby politicians and raise funds for the cause. She previously worked on a campaign against Lincoln Center, fighting to get the organization to restore a park they tore down to make way for new real estate. Freud says most volunteers are retired people and that she wishes younger people got in on the fight.

“Being alive means fighting. You can’t just let things happen to you,” she told the paper.