Cover Story: Tales of Crown Heights: The Fruits of Harassment by Tom Robbins.
Other stories include Tim Ledwith on local residential concern over property speculation in Chinatown; Tim Ledwith on the State Legislature's opposition to providing New York City's mass transit system with much-needed tax dollars; Tom Robbins on the Association of Neighborhood Developers' plan to brave the Reagan era; Susan Baldwin on a small loan program that makes a difference; Tim Ledwith on what the city plans to do to improve heating in public housing for the winter in light of a city-wide heating debacle in the winter of 1980-81; Richard Schrader's criticism of New York State's Public Service Commission; Susan Baldwin on a one-time notorious landlord's filing of a suit to reclaim his property in Manhattan Valley from the city.
Cover Story: Tales of Crown Heights: The Fruits of Harassment by Tom Robbins.
Other stories include Tim Ledwith on local residential concern over property speculation in Chinatown; Tim Ledwith on the State Legislature's opposition to providing New York City's mass transit system with much-needed tax dollars; Tom Robbins on the Association of Neighborhood Developers' plan to brave the Reagan era; Susan Baldwin on a small loan program that makes a difference; Tim Ledwith on what the city plans to do to improve heating in public housing for the winter in light of a city-wide heating debacle in the winter of 1980-81; Richard Schrader's criticism of New York State's Public Service Commission; Susan Baldwin on a one-time notorious landlord's filing of a suit to reclaim his property in Manhattan Valley from the city.
Cover Story: Tales of Crown Heights: The Fruits of Harassment by Tom Robbins.
Other stories include Tim Ledwith on local residential concern over property speculation in Chinatown; Tim Ledwith on the State Legislature's opposition to providing New York City's mass transit system with much-needed tax dollars; Tom Robbins on the Association of Neighborhood Developers' plan to brave the Reagan era; Susan Baldwin on a small loan program that makes a difference; Tim Ledwith on what the city plans to do to improve heating in public housing for the winter in light of a city-wide heating debacle in the winter of 1980-81; Richard Schrader's criticism of New York State's Public Service Commission; Susan Baldwin on a one-time notorious landlord's filing of a suit to reclaim his property in Manhattan Valley from the city.
THE NEWS MAGAZINE OF NEW YORK CITY HOUSING AND NEIGHBORHOODS
Tales of Crown Heights:
DECEMBER 1981 $1.50 The Fruits of Harassment A cycle of harassment and displacement, followed by subsidized renovation in a 'number of Crown Heights buildings has been conf'mned by at least one city hearing officer. But what present and former residents of those. buildings want to know is, who's going to put a stop to it? While a city probe into that and other practices enters its third year without resolution, many see the wheels of justice turning-the wrong way. Short Term Notes Speculation Moves to Chinatown O N THE EASTERN EDGE OF Chinatown, in the Manhattan Bridge's shadow, sits 87 Madison Street, which for the last several weeks has been a vacant lot. The five-story walk-up that used to be there became vacant in Aug- ust, after several months of what former tenants have characterized as continual harassment-and just a few days before the building's owner secured approval to build a high-rise condominium develop- ment on the site. The story of 87 Madison confirms the worst fears of some Chinatown observers who believe the community's identity and livelihood are threatened by a current trend toward big money real estate development. The building was acquired in Septem- ber, 1979 by Thomas Lee, president of an investment group called the Overseas Chinese Development Corporation, and before long, according to affidavits filed in October by ten former occupants, maintenance and repairs at 87 Madison took a downhill slide. Tenants said they complained about sporadic heat and hot water, a broken entry door and other serious problems. "All we got for an answer," said Fung King Yu, who had lived at 87 Madison since 1975, "was that the building was going to be tom down CITY liMITS/December 1981 and therefore the landlord would not repair anything." By last spring, when Lee's group was courting city and Community Board approval of the condominium plan, the stakes were apparently raised. In March, said former resident Lam Sau Yi, the owner refused tenants' rent and told them to move out. Some did, and, ac- cording to Lam, "Each time one family moved out the landlord would break the windows and seal the doors" of the vacated unit. In May, two suspicious fires hit 87 Madison. After the second fire, which started in the hallway outside his apartment door, 37 year resident Frank Fiore said Lee "put $2,000 in my pocket and told me to leave as soon as possible." Other remaining tenants reported the same stick-and-carrot treat- ment, and the last one left on August 16. On August 20, the Board of Estimate granted final approval for the Overseas Chinese group to commence develop- ment on the site. Lee's attorney, Scott Mollen, dis- counted the tenants' tale. "We believe that those are trumped-up charges," he said. Mollen challenged the claim that services were systeRlatically withdrawn from 87 Madison, claiming that residents 2 were duly compensated for relocating. Lee told the New York Times in September that former tenants had received payments ranging from $500 to $6,000. Responded Joyce Moi, a private attor- ney who is working with the former tenants to get further compensation: "You have to understand the circum- stances. If you're the last tenant in a building, you either stay there with a vacant building that's being vandalized or you take whatever you can and leave. " "Flight Capital" In any case, Lee's pay-offs to the Madison Street residents were, from his perspective, a great investment. One- bedroom apartments among the 143 units planned for the site will sell for $112,000, with monthly maintenance charges of about $250. Though the building site for the two 12 and 16-story towers has been cleared, construction hasn't yet begun. Mollen claimed the project's fmancing "hasn't been firmed up yet." Conceding that they were "very close" to a financing agreement, Mollen said the developers are "'in the process of negotiating with domestic sources of capital." Asked whether the Overseas Chinese group precludes the use of foreign capital, he replied, "No, we don't." Lee told the Times the entire project was being backed by funds from the Middle East and Hong Kong. If foreign capital is used to build the development, called East West Towers, it will mark the acceleration of already heavy international investment in Chinatown, and that worries some people. "Speculation will drive people out with higher rents," argued Bill Chong, a spokesman for Asian Ameri- cans for Equality, a Chinatown-based organization that's trying to organize resistance to the trend. He explained that speculation could become intense as "flight capital" from overseas floods the area's real estate market. Chong cited the office space boom in downtown Manhattan's fmancial district-within easy walking distance of Chinatown-as a magnet for expensive residential development, especially for nervous speculators from Taiwan, whose future as a capitalist state is uncertain, and Hong Kong, whose British lease expires in 1997. Chong emphasized that speculation in ventures like East West Towers has been facilitated by the establishment of a special zoning district in the neighbor- hood. The so-called Manhattan Bridge Special District, established last March and covering several blocks near the bridge's western end, allows for the development of approved structures that are larger and . higher than previous zoning provisions allowed. Since the district's inception, three high-rise luxury housing projects, including East West . Towers, have won city approval there. Some Chinatown residents advocate such projects and the economic activity they're sure to foster, but others are far from convinced. "We don't really think these are the kinds of projects that will benefit the people of Chinatown," remarked attorney Moi. "We're afraid this will drive out the fixed-income people, especially the elderly." Asked about that possibility, the Overseas Chinese group's attorney claimed that most inquiries about future occupancy in East West Towers had come from the area, from "Chinese business interests." But Chong pointed out the importance of the local working CONTENTS Volume 6, Number 10 class population in sustaining the neigh- borhood's unique, self-contained econ- omy. "People live here and work here," he said. "If you live in Chinatown, you either work in the garment industry or in restaurants. What's going to happen to those industries if people can't afford to live here anymore?" Despite recent developments, that remains a long-range question, but there are signs of stress in the area's affordable rental housing stock. Though migration from the neighborhood to other boroughs has proceeded apace in the past decade, Chinatown's population has blossomed to around 60,000, spurring a gradual expansion of community borders and straining the traditionally crowded stock of aging tenements. And while housing condi- tions have generally declined, area rents have been prodded upward by a miniscule apartment vacancy rate. Complained a Catherine Street shop- worker whose parents recently returned from Hong' Kong after several years. there: "They had to take a little apartment on Henry Street where they're paying $490. And you know where it is? Right under the 'F' train!" That may be an indication of things to come in Chinatown, but the neighbor- hood's fate isn't sealed yet. Though Community Board 3 originally approved both the Special District and plans for East West Towers, charges of tenant harassment later led the Board to form a "fact-rmding committee" to reconsider both. (public hearings had been held on both issues, but Chinatown residents pointed out that notices never appeared in Chinese language media). The com- mittee's recommendations, presented and approved at an October 27 meeting of the whole Board, called for the revocation of East West Towers' build- ing permit and suspension of the entire Special District, at least until tenant harassment allegations have been investi- gated. The unprecedented action took city officials by surprise, but a City Planning Commission spokesman told the Dai/y News, "If there was harassment, steps will be taken regarding the [East West Towers] permit." A month later, the permit and the Special District were stIli in place, but most Chinatown resiaents probably didn't notice-they were busy running a community. OT.L. ( CITYLIMIlS) I Speculation in Chinatown ......................... 2 Illy.etcept JunelJuly and the Association or-Neigh- Center for Com- Transit Tax Breakdown ........................... 4 Neighborhood Developers Chart Course ............. 6 A Small Loan Program ........................... 7 Putting The Heat On . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . 8 Tales of Crown Heights ......... .. ................ 12 Letters ................................... . .... 19 Public Service Commission .......... .. ............ 20 A Landlord Comes Back ......................... 23 Cover photo by Marc Jahr 3 and the'Urban 'ty Limits do not wring organization;. $2$ and gcvrumeut " {pr indhlidua}sand 9mmunity-basec or$anizatlous; . to: CITY LJI'{P) 424 NewYqrk., !'f,X )0001 " ... . . .. . qf dddrJ!Ss if): City Limits, 4Z4 West J3nj y/!()()()l secqna..ctas$ j)O$tage paid New; York. N.Y. 10001 (IS$N oOl99"()33Q) Editor .. ".,,_,.' . 'i\l:> ,./ , ,,, ", . , Tom Robbins Assistant Editor, ... , . , . '.' . ' ... , , ., ...... Tim Ledwith AssiStant. J:lditor " H ., ....... "'''''.' c: .... Susan Bald.win I)esigll alld Ltyout .. > . " ';,. ,. Louis Fulgoni J9/fI. All reserved,No portiOlIo r porti01/s oj Ihis}oU{'n(ltf!t Il )'i?e.rep""ted withollt tit, ,xpress written miSsio4o/ thepubJl,fhers; TIlls"'''. f1UIck!d tlmmlh .,. .... New York (:om- IDIIJIiCYTr.-. CITY LIMITS/December 1981 Breakdown 'on the Transit Tax Express A s NEW YORK CITY'S MASS transit creaks toward what many riders view as almost certain disaster, a real estate tax measure designed to infuse the system with much-needed operating dollars may soon be derailed. The measure, a special tax on the transfer of large, "income-producing" properties concentrated in ManhattlUl, was opposed during the State Legisla- ture's fall session by the city's real estate industry and Mayor Edward Koch, who unsuccessfully sought to replace it with increases in two existing real estate taxes. That proposal, in turn, was attacked by public interest and riders' groups as a meager substitute, and it failed in a mid- November State Senate vote. But when legislators return to Albany for a special session starting December 16, so will the lobbyists from both sides of the transit tax track. The current tax is a 10 percent levy on capital gains from the sale of real estate , i . \ I t . ! I I CITY LIMITS/December 1981 valued at $1 million or more (Capital gain is the difference between the price a building sells for and the original price plus the value of any improvements made). The tax emerged from the Legis- lature in July as part of a five-tax pack- age designed to hold the fare increase to a mere 25 percent. The package also increased some small business taxes and hiked the downstate counties' sales tax- all told raising $780 million in annual subsidies for the bus, subway and commuter rail system. The unsuccessful replacement bill, of- fered by the mayor and supported by real estate interests, would instead have increased the existing mortgage record- ing and transfer taxes on the sale of properties worth $500,000 or $50 million lost Both incarnations of the transit tax, their legislative supporters estimate, could raise about $30 million annually, but some supporters of the current, capital gains levy say it could raise a lot more. The Straphangers Campaign, a transit-oriented affiliate of the New York Public Interest Research Group, claims that at least $50 million in tax revenue was lost between August 1 and October 1, when implementation of the capital gains tax was delayed at the city's behest. The delay, the mayor's office claimed, was needed to get the tax collection machinery in place. During that two month period, Straphangers research revealed, about 130 properties worth more than $1 million each changed corporate hands in Manhattan alone, amounting to over a billion dollars in aggregate sales. Though they note that the two months' feverish trading was prompted in part by the impending windfall tax (a September 6 headline in the New York Times real estate section subtly advised, "Save a Bundle: Close by October 1 "), Straphangers representa- tives point out that, at this rate, the capital gains levy would generate over 200 million transit dollars a year. Claudia Wagner, a spokeswoman for Koch's legislative office, challenges that possibility. "Deals can be easily struc- tured to get around the [capital gains] act," she claims. "Litigation on both sides will go on for years. Collecting the tax will be extremely problematic." To illustrate, Wagner notes that only $100,000 in tax revenue was collected during the measure's first six weeks of existence. The capital gains tax's proponents credit that low figure to real estate indus- try anticipation that its tax burden will be lightened considerably during the De- cember legislative session. The flurry of high value transfers before October I, they add, reflected the real estate indus- try's conviction that, despite the city's claims to the contrary, the tax is quite collectible. Frank Domurad, NYPIRG's tax re- form director, admits that the levy has some flaws that might allow corporate movers and shakers to transfer ' multi- million dollar properties in smaller parcels of stock, thereby ducking taxation under the capital gains formula. "But we think whatever technical problems there are can be solved by chapter amendments," Domurad insists. "Look, no matter what kind of tax you impose, large firms will hire people at very high salaries to help them avoid paying it." Uncertain income? But the mayor's representatives insist that, even beyond the question of cor- porate tax-<iodging, the capital gains measure is an uncertain income source. A major objection to the levy, says Wagner, is that "this is a very cyclical type of revenue bill. You're not going to see a constant source of revenue from it." By lowering the taxable ceiling to $500,000 and utilizing existing collection procedures, she says, the mayor's substi- tute bill "would provide a more steady source of income." In order for a transit tax to be effective, Wagner concludes, "it has to be workable." Supporters of the capital gains measure bitterly argue that, rather than being a more workable alternative toward the same end, such a substitute would violate the entire purpose of the current tax. NYPIRG charged in an October legislative memorandum that the mayor's suggested replacement tax would "fall most heavily on small busi- nesses. Its effect will be regressive and impact on the often less vibrant economies of the outer boroughs." Adds Gene Russianoff, a NYPIRG/Strap- hangers attorney who's been active in the tax fight: "The capital gains tax was included in a package last summer that included some regressive taxes that we weren't supportive of, but we supported the package as a compromise. Tamper with one of these taxes now and the whole house of cards is going to fall." And Russianoff didn't mince words in characterizing Koch's attempts at this late date to repeal part of the transit package: "This is backdoor political trickery. " Whether it's trickery or not, the Koch proposal would clearly alter a major ele- ment of the capital gains measure-the idea that mass transit should be substan- tially supported by the corporate sector that relies on its continued operation. Assembly Speaker Stanley Fink, who was instrumental in getting the tax bill passed last summer, credits the Munici- pal Research Institute, an urban consult- ing firm, with providing its rationale. 5 "The fastest growing source of wealth in New York City is real estate," said an Institute report released last May. "Th.:: City's extensive mass transit network provides a direct benefit to local real estate operators and it is only fair that they bear some of the increased costs of maintaining the system." The Institute's director, Dan McCarthy, points out that the concept originated with Socialist can- didates for city office who called, during the 1930s, for special tax assessments on property served by subway lines that were then expanding further into the boroughs. Private interests depended on the daily transport of a vast workforce into and out of Manhattan, the argu- ment went, so they had an obligation to help pay the fare. The argument today is essentially the same. "There's going to be 20 million square feet of new office space in Manhattan by 1985," NYPIRG's Doinurad asserts. "That means about a 30 percent increase in the workforce. The straight fact of the matter is that this kind of development wouldn't be possi- ble without mass transit. They're going to be benefitting from it, and hurting too if the system collapses." So, as the Legislature reconvenes this month, the battle lines will be clearly drawn. Mayoral spokeswoman Wagner says her office "is still committed to repeal the 10 Percent tax. We're back on the drawing board." The current tax's proponents are ready to argue that it is the most appropriate and effective way to raise operating funds and avoid re- gressive fare hikes. From both sides, the issue is clearly as live as a third rail.OT.L. CITY LIMITS/December 1981 r Neighborhood Housing Developers Chart Their Course , 'MERELY SURVIVING THE next couple of years, without putting out services to our communities, would be a major defeat," said Bonnie Brower, the new director of the Associa- tion of Neighborhood Housing Develop- ers recently. At a recent weekend retreat, the Asso- ciation, a major membership group of New York City community-based organizations, founded in 1974, mapped its needs for the coming year, as well as the strategies it will have to pur- sue in order to achieve them. Almost a full year of the Reagan era ' has yielded a host of cliches about the survival course for neighborhood organ- izations. "Volubteerism," "public- private partnerships," and "self-suffi- ciency" are three most commonly heard. With subsidized public employment for neighborhoods (CETA) and many of the federal programs that fueled community activities now relics of the past, community groups have been going through a retrenchment of their own. The cliches, no matter how difficult to achieve they may be, are leaping off the pages of grant proposals and into every- day parlance with an emphasis they did not previously possess. Groups every- where speak of lean times to come and a greater self-reliance than ever before. The Association has had to do a sub- stantial amount of retrenchment itself, both in its central operation and within most of its 22 member groups. It is cur- rently emerging from a rocky transition that included loss of a CETA public service employment contract that, at its peak, employed almost 500 neighbor- hood workers placed with nearly '50 organizations. Like other' 'umbrella" CETA sponsors, a good deal of ANHD's C) structure and thrust grew around the e program. Loss of the contract meant not ~ only losing almost half of a staff of o..l thirty, but a part of the organization's '" direction as well. housing movement in New York has often lacked. At the retreat, ANHD members At least a portion of that task will fall dermed as a priority the need for to the Association's new director improved communications and the Bonnie Brower, a former managing development of a network among the attorney for East Brooklyn Legal Ser- groups that will enable organizations to vices and deputy general counsel for achieve a cohesiveness the neighborhood sales at the city's Department of Housing CITY LIMITS/December 1981 6 and Preservation. Brower said the Asso- ciation will put a renewed emphasis on its role as a policy advocate for neigh- borhood development. The Association will take leadership in analyzing existing government legislation and regulations and will propose new housing and neigh- borhoods initiatives. One mutual problem for neighbor- hood groups articulated at the retreat weekend is a response to new HUD regulations that mandate tenant selection in federally subsidized rehabilitation and new construction projects by lottery, without preference towards long-time neighborhood residents in need of housing. The Association will host an early December meeting for groups con- cerned with that 'issue to help form a response. Provision of needed services on the part of the Association and member groups will playa key role in building the foundation for its activities. The Asso- ciation is in the process of computerizing the administration of several consortia that provide reduced rates for heating fuel, liability and health insurance to community owned and managed housing. "The nature of ANHD as an umbrella organization of housing and community development groups that is city-wide and multi-racial is unique," said Brower. "We're going to be expanding our membership tremendously so that it becomes even more representative of the housing movemeJ)t in New York City." One continuing problem for the Asso- ciation since its founding has been a gap between the needs of older, larger and more sophisticated groups and younger, smaller organizations. Can the Association bridge that gap? "One of the best things said at the retreat," said Brower, "was a real recognition on the part of our members of a need to promote and involve themselves in issues that may not be primary in their areas. There was a recognition of the need for joint action, and a need for ANHD to be the spokesperson oli issues that may not affect each and every group but that are still crucial. There will still be a certain amount of competition and jealousy," she warned, "but from the largest to the smallest there was a sense of willingness to work together. "0 T .R. A Small Loan Program That Makes A Difference , 'WEWOULDN'TBEWHERE we are now today if we hadn't had help, such as the dumpster program." So said Ellen Baisden, a 27-year resident of 2460 Seventh Avenue in Harlem. "Everything that could go wrong here has, but now the tenants are turning this around." . Begun in May, 1979, with a $5,000 revolving loan fund from the Consumer Farmer Foundation, the Dumpster Loan Program was designed to provide in- terest-free loans to tenant groups with limited resources doing their own reha- bilitation work (sweat equity) in city- owned, tax-foreclosed buildings. The program is administered by the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board and is one of the best local examples of how far a small investment can take a large number of people. Most of the buildings using the dump- ster program are in the c i t y ~ s Tenant Interim Lease (TIL) program, although seven on West 105th Street in Upper Manhattan are being renovated by the West 105th Street Homesteaders with an innovative loan from the National Consumer Cooperative Bank. Since the program began, 104 build- ings with a total of 2,216 apartments have used the program. According to Denise Powell, administrator of the dumpster loan program at UHAB, 697 apartments have been cleaned out, repre- senting a service to more than 7,000 people. She also said that a total of 178 tenant associations and community groups have either received loans or assistance in securing containers. "It is not the solution to the serious housing crisis, to Reagan, or to rats, but it is an answer to people who are trying to ftx up their buildings and get rid of debris," said Martin Young, of the Consumer Farmer Foundation. "It has affected the lives of a couple thousand tenants. Nineteen buildings have been sold as cooperatives, and this is a miracle for low income people who want to ftx up their homes." Dumpster fees range from $150 for the smallest (15 yards) to $220 for the largest (30 yards). According to Powell, most groups have used the program when they have a cash flow problem but are fairly prompt in paying back the loans. "We have used the program about eight times, and we have done quite a bit to clean out our building, " said Baisden, who serves as the bookkeeper for the tenants association at 2460 Seventh Avenue. "But we usually payoff the loan in full before the monthly install- ments begin." Baisden's building, which entered the TIL program in March, 1979, with only 18 occupied apartments of a total of 52, now has only eight vacancies and boasts a large waiting list for four apartments ready for occupancy. At present, the tenants are engaged in sweat equity rehabilitation and are hoping to buy their apartments possibly next year at the city's stated low income price of $250-a-unit. The building's cur- rent rents are $200-a-month for four rooms, $275 for six rooms. "We have large apartments and are proud of our building," Baisden assert- ed, noting that the tenants have heat and hot water "every day of the year, but we have to ftx this plumbing because it will only get worse. We really could use some help for this from the city." In addition to making use of the dumpster pr.ogram, 2460 Seventh Avenue has been receiving construction materials from the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development 7 to repair the apartments. Another building-970 Tinton Avenue in the South Bronx-used the dumpster program with less success. "We paid $250 at one shot for the dumpster, but we didn't have it long enough," said Inez Owens, a 13-year resident and organizer of its tenants association. "We needed it much longer. It's a nice thing, but we could have used it for at least a month. Unfortunately, the city says a normal period is two days because the dumpsters are so much in demand." As a result, according to Owens, the tenants had to throw most of the debris on the yard of an adjacent vacant building. Her building, however, was fortunate to receive volunteer labor from the Neighborhood Work Project, a program run by the Vera Institute of Justice, which employs ex-offenders as temporary workers until permanent jobs are found for them. The NWP work crew spent a month last spring cleaning out the debris from the backyard and making repairs to vacant apartments. As a result, Owens was able to run a neigh- borhood youth employment program for 35 young people and provide a summer lunch program which fed some 1,000 local residents. "We need all the help we can get to save this housing," Owens concluded. "It's not a bad block for the South Bronx. We only have one abandoned building, but before we can buy our apartments from the city, even for $250, a lot has to be ftxed, particularly the plumbing and electrical problems.' 0 S.B. CITY LIMITS/December 1981 Putting the Heat On, This Year By TIM LEDWITH C HRISTMAS BROUGHT THE unlikely gift of an arctic chill to New Yorkers last year and, with intermit- tent relief, the chill stayed put for the rest of the season. By the end of the winter, in which temperatures averaged nearly 20 percent lower than usual, Governor Hugh Carey had been prompted to open National Guard armories to shelter refugees from heatless buildings, at least 13 New Yorkers had died of exposure to the cold (along with countless others who fell to cold-related illnesses and fires) and tenants had filed 283,000 complaints about ill-heated apartments with the city housing agency. Banner headlines and television news shows steadfastly covered the winter's horror stories, calling attention to the questions of public and private account- ability they raised. But as the last snow of the 1980-81 season melted away, so did media attention. And as the winter of 1981-82 begins in frosty earnest, many people who live and work in the neigh- borhoods hardest hit last year are won- dering whether, in the absence of a mer- cifully mild season, they will be iced out once again. On paper at least, the standards and procedures designed to prevent such a fate are pretty clear. During the heating season-October 1 to May 31-the mini- mum requirements are as follows: from 6 AM to 10 PM, if it is below 55 degrees outside, the inside temperature must be 68 degrees; between 10 PM and 6 AM, if the outside temperature is ' below 40 CITY LlMITSlDecember 1981 degrees, it must be at least 55 degrees inside. When landlords fail to meet these standards, tenants can call the city's Central Complaints telephone number (960-4800) to get their giievances on the record. According to the prescribed pro- cedure, once a complaint has been filed, the building owner or agent is to be called and asked if he or she is aware of the problem. If the landlord says the situation has been or is about to be resolved, the tenant is to be called back by the housing agency the next day and asked if the chill persists. If it does, Central Complaints is supposed to notify the appropriate borough office, which in ' turn is expected to dispatch an inspector. So far, so good. According to the De- partment of Housing Preservation and Development, a quarter of last winter's heat complaints were resolved through callbacks. But in light of the importance of getting apartments inspected when heat complaints aren't so easily reme- died, tenants point with concern to the decline in recent yeas of HPD's inspection force; the group dwindled from over 600 inspectors in 1975 to 387 last year. According to Joseph Shul- 8 diner, head of the agency' s Evaluation and Compliance unit, the force is back up slightly this year, with 410 full-timers and 33 trainees hired iIi September. However, Shuldiner points out, only about 250 inspectors actually work in the field. That group, even at the level of 9.8 inspections performed each person-day as projected for fiscal 982 in the Mayor's Management Report, would be overwhelmed by a prolonged deep-freeze like last January's, when housands of complaints poured in daily. $190,000 is budgeted for inspectors' overtime this year. Under last January' s unusually frigid conditions, even a mayoral infusion of $715,000 to 'ncrease the inspection force failed to get the system back on track in many neighborhoods. A SSUMING A VISIT FROM THE inspectors' thin ranks can be se- cured, and the cold truth of a heat viola- tion verified, one immediate course of action open to tenants this year, as in the past, is the city's Emergency Repair Program. Funded mainly ith federal Community Development dollars, the program is composed of 40 city employ- ees and about 90 subcontractors who provide repairs and heating fuel deliveries in extreme cases of landlord negligence. Last year, more than $13 million was spent on over 26,000 ERP jobs city-wide. Since federal funds for fiscal 1982 are in place, tills winter's ERP spending should not be affected by budget slashing in Washington: this year's emergency repair budget is set at $8.3 million, and the program's actual expenditures can be expected to exceed the budget projection by several million dollars. About half the current ERP fund is earmarked for heating fuel deliveries, and in cases where a tank of fuel is all that's needed to thaw out a frozen building, the program offers residents an oft-used option-provided that a viola- tion has been verified and the landlord allows access to the tank. An alternative to the possible bureaucratic pitfalls of the emergency repair process is available under the 1979 Fuel Buying Law, which allows tenants who are without heat for at least 24 hours, and who can't get satis- faction from their landlords, to buy heating fuel and deduct it from their rent. Tills alternative, of course, illnges on residents' ability to accumulate a large enough rent roll to make the purchase. If they can't, or if the heating system needs more than fuel to breathe warmth into the building, tenants are back to relying on city aid or pressure from the courts for immediate relief. The latter option is a virtual standing joke among tenants, organizers and even public officials who have tried to utilize legal pressure to resolve heat violations, but they're still trying: 3,149 heat-related cases passed through the city's housing courts last winter; about 900 in the form of tenant-initiated actions, the rest brought by the city housing agency. Bruce Kramer, head of HPD's litiga- tion unit, which is responsible for prose- cuting heat violators, calls tenant-initiat- ed court action in heat cases "the key to the system." Kramer concedes that the housing agency, with current resources, "is not going to hit all the buildings with heat violations." As for the criteria his unit employs to choose which landlords will be prosecuted, says Kramer: "We're more apt to pick a building where there's J As winter and the first complaints of heatless apartments commence, some tenant activists aren't leaving fate to f1atUte's Two organiza- tions-the New York State Tenant and NeighborhOOd Coalition and the New york Public Interest Research Oroqp's Citizen's Allianc-have ap- proached the powers that be with some hard questions about the city's ability to deal with potential problems dtllin$ the current heating season. NYSTNC's Code Enforcement Committee, which started meeting on the heat. issue in October, has developed a set of heat enforcement measures that, thearoup says, should be taken 'bY the J')epatUnent of Housing Preservation and Develcfpment and City Han. The list includes demands that: the number of housing inspectorS be inreased to pre-l97S levels HPD insure effective levying andColleedonof f),nes the housing agency educate the public and use the tpedia toinform tenants abdut heat-related actions. pIae mUlti .. lingualadvertisementsin subways and buses and that information sheets be distributed by inspectors at the time of inspection. litigation staff at HPD be increased so that there wiD be a ratio of one attorney to twenty inspectors HPD litigation procedures be streamlined the housing agency SUI)J)OCUegil.lationi",iUc;h wiD require in heat complaint cases that a judge must and civil to be imposed on thafi two COUrt dates
........ d of heat Repair Program. In an HPD spokesman said the agency would establish an advisory tenant committee to improve heat services. Another demand-that the city adopt minimum building weatherization standards and deny non-complYing landlords "fuel passaJongs" they get under current rent regulations-was rejected by the housing agency representative. Another demonstration, this one scheduled by NYSTNC for December 9, was planned to memorialize tenants whO died last winter from exposure to the <:ald. and was co-sponsored by about two doi!eD tenant and neighborhood organizatioQs around the city. The action, an early evening candlelight vigil in front of City Hall, was intended to dramatize the vital nature of the heat enforcement issue. 0 no heat than one which has some. And while we don't rule out smaller build- ings, we might be led in the first instance to go to a larger one and service more units." In heatless buildings not chosen for city litigation, states Kramer, "with- holding rent is not so effective because many landlords just wait until spring to tenants to court." On the other hand, he adds, tenant-initiated action "is an offensive procedure that groups of tenants can take." Irma Rodriguez, director of the East Bronx Neighborhood Stabilization 9 office, thinks Kramer is "probably right" about the importance of tenant- initiated actions, but she is hardly enthusiastic. "There's no justice in housing court," Rodriguez laments. "One day you've got a judge who is jailing a landlord because there's no heat, and another we'll have a serious situation that goes on for months and months and we can't even get a contempt order." Other observers familiar with housing court complain that, even when fines are levied, they often remain uncollected. CITY LIMITS/December 1981 A CCORDING TO THE STA- tute, landlords found gUilty in heat cases are liable not only to substantial fines, but also possible imprisonment. Last winter, however, only four violators were jailed. So fIDes appear to be the city's biggest potential stick. On the current heating season's open day, Mayor Edward Koch signed into law a bill which raised fines for building owners who don't provide heat and hot water from $25 to $250 per violation, per day. The bill also created a minimum $1,000 penalty for the use of illegal timing devices on boilers which cause central heating systems to shut off during certain times of the day or night, not based on the outside temperature. In a statement released the day these stiffer penalties were announced, HPD Com- missioner Anthony Gliedman called the bill signing "a message to negligent land- lords throughout the city that we intend to take serious action to protect tenants." In practice, though, the effect of these stiffer penalties is questionable. Steve Cruz, who works for the Saint Nicholas Housing Development Corporation in north Brooklyn, isn't impressed. "Whe- ther it's $25 or $250, it'll be the same thing," he ~ s s e r t s . "Th; vast majority of violating landlords won't be fined." Observes HPD's Shuldiner: "It's impos- sible to say what this will do." In the past, Shuldiner says, the Department never sued for penalties in heat cases. "That would take two weeks," he states, so instead the agency has generally moved for more immediate court "or- ders to correct" when prosecuting heat violators. Last winter, HPD actually collected no fIDes fo heat violations, but $326,000 iIi judgements for contempt were levied against landlords who failed to comply with orders to correct viola- tions. Shuldiner is certain about how much of that was collected, but the agency .reportedly collected $590,000 in fines for all code viQlations during fiscal 1981. As far as HPD's choice this season between suing for t e new, stiffer fIDes or for contempt judgements, states Shul- diner, "We'll probably do a little of both." Meanwhile, tenan s around New York will once again try to turn the often frozen dials of the city's heat-generating legal machine. 0 Coping With the Cold, While Working for Change figures to 40 percent for low income and 1l.5 percent for median income households: In New York, where all households already pay about one-third more than the national average for,energy, home heating il has increased in price by an armual average of 47 percent since 1973. And New York is more oil dependent than the rest of the nation: nation- wide, less than half the heating energy used derives from oil, while in New York the figure is 80 percent. N OBODY LIKES TO THINK ABOUT WINTER when the weather is warm, but now that the cold weather is upon us, tenants in poorly insulated, ill-heated buildings can plan for the even colder months ahead. Heat problems are particularly acute for low income renters, at least 40 percent of whom live in uninsulated buildings. In 1978, poor people paid a national average of 33 percent of their income for energy costs. The median income household paid 9.6 percent. Energy price increases since then bring those CITY LIMITS/December 1981 10 In addition, relatively few New Yorkers ontrol their own heat. Multi-family (six or more unit) buildings make up 36 percent of the statewide housing stock, compared to 20 percent nationally, and are concentrated primarily in New York City. Largely because of this, 83 percent of New Yorkers don't have control of their home space heating, compared to 39 percent nationwide. It is in large rental buildings, then, that tenants and tenants' advocates often try to reverse owners' traditional economic approach and set new priorities. In terms of priorities, the only way owners can immediately reduce fuel consumption, and enormous energy expenses,is through weatherization: install- ing storm doors and windows; insulating alls, ceilings and attics; tuning furnaces; insulating heating pipes and ducts; sealing cracks in foundations and walls. These are expensive, but in the long run cost-effective, measures Short of such measures, tenants have tHe unquestionable right to demand certain "amenities" necessary for their survival. The demand for adequate heating is justifiably addressed to government agencies and landlords, but it is often met only to the point of assuring that nobody freezes to death in his or her apartment. Beyond that extreme are the everyday needs to keep sickness away, have healthy children in school, maintain working capacity and protect the ability to tbink- the strongest political tool. To help meet those needs, low and moderate income residents can become involved in protecting emselves from the rigors of cold weather. The materials n ed should not be seen as obstacles; a host of relatively cheap products that prevent the outside cold air from penetra,ting the indoors are available. One possibility for covering the costs of basic measures like weatherstripping and caulking is through negotiation with the landlord or manager. Or, the owner can provide all materials and renters can do the work, after training and under supervision if necessary, as is often done with apartment painting jobs. If the cooperation between renters and owners is effective, and savings are large (a well- weatherized building will reduce fuel consumption by 15 to 40 percent), further arrangements, such as reworked rental charges or revolving funds for additional energy conservation activities, may be in order. -Women's Energy Tool Kit, Home heating, cooling and weatherization. A workbook for residents in large and small buildings. Includes information on basic installation of energy saving materials, as well as tips on what materials to use. Available for $5.95, plus $1.50 postage and handling, from Consumer Action Now, 355 Lexington Ave., New York, N.Y. 10017. -Stay Warm (And Save Money), Energy conservation for old law and other small apartment buildings in New York City. A manual for conservation directed primarily toward operators of three-to-five story walk-up buildings, this book also includes detailed instructions for tenants who want to weatherize their apartments. Available from the New York City Energy Office for $3.50. For information call the office's Energy Line at 349-2951.. As far as implementation is concerned, a number of re- sources are available for tenants who wish to implement basic conservation measures in their homes. Some of these are: -No Heat, No Rent, An urban solar and energy conservation manual. An introduction to energy conservation techniques suitable for a typical New York City tenement building. Available for $1.50 postage and handling, free if you pick it up, from the Energy Task Force, 156 Fifth Ave., New York, N.Y. 10010. -The Brooklyn J<;nergy Co-op, located at 562 Atlantic Ave., between Third and Fourth Avenues. A cooperative enterprise that offers energy saving products to members at low prices. Call 858-8803 for details. 0 Martha E. Soler Martha E. Soler is Planning Coordinator at Pratt Institute Center for Community and Environmental Development, and teaches a course on energy-efficient land use at Pratt's Planning School. Interest Rates Hearing Planned The New York Coalition Against Redlining is a loose federation of neigh- borhood organizations that works on re- investment issues on a city-wide basis. During the last couple of years, CAR members efforts have focused on en- forcement of the Community Reinvest- ment Act, a federal measure requiring fi- nancial institutions to meet the credit needs of their communities. Earlier this year, the group sought and got meetings with federal regulators and representa- tives from the city's largest banks to dis- cuss the near impossibility of securing renovation loans for multiple dwellings and mixed use (commercial and residen- tial) buildings. But as interest rates have risen dramatically in recent years, many of CAR's efforts have become almost academic; no matter how many 17 per- cent mortgages are available, they won't do low and moderate income neighbor- hoods very much good. In order to address this problem, the Coalition will hold a public hearing on interest rates on January 16, at the New York University Catholic Center, from noon until 4 PM. The hearing will feature representatives from the Federal Reserve Board, whose policies have kept interest rates high in the name of fighting inflation. The hearing will offer home- owners, tenants, small businesspeople and anyone else who's concerned the op- portunity to testify about the effect of high interest rates in their communities. In addition, several workshops will be held, including: a discussion of new "ad- justable rate mortgages" being offered at banks that have largely replaced tradi- tional, long term fixed mortgages; a run- down on how some community organi- zations are packaging public and private financing to develop energy-saving reha- bilitation in apartment buildings; a look at the impact of high interest rates on small businesses and neighborhood economic development; and a session about other sources of mortgage money available from government finance agen- cies and pension funds. For further information on the hear- ings call 964-7200.0 Smoke Detectors: Get 'Em While They're Hot! The New York Neighborhood Anti-Arson Center and the Association of Neighborhood Housing Developers, Inc. have arranged for the bulk purchasing of smoke detectors for tenant/community group-owned and managed buildings. The installation of smoke detectors has been mandated by the New York City Council, effective January 1, 1982. Both ionization and photoelectric models are available (see City Limits "Smoldering Smoke Detectors" November, 1981). Call Harriet Cohen at (212) 239-9414 for details on prices, delivery and general smoke detector information. 0 11 CITY LIMITS/December 1981 Tales of Crown Heights: The Fruits of Harassment y Tom Robbins T HREE YEARS AGO, A TEMPEST OF CONTRO- versy raged across the Brooklyn community of Crown Heights. A volatile area to start with, the neighborhood has for several years been the scene of an ongoing tussle over turf and power between a large black and Hispanic population and an expanding community of Hasidic Jews. The storm thundered into the open with a wave of rent strikes in buildings tenanted mostly by blacks and Hispanics and owned by a prominent Hasidic community leader. And, as TV cameras rolled on scenes of occupied apartments where sledgehammers had broken through floors and walls in the name of renovation, tenants told their stories of harassment. Then, gusting from another direction, the storm grew when City Council President Carol Bellamy released a report detail- ing major alleged abuses and fiscal irregularities by a Hasidic anti-poverty and housing organization. At the center of the storm was Rabbi David Fischer, head of a host of private realty and management corporations, and Director of Chevra Machazikei Hashcunah, the Lubavitcher Hasidic community's major housing and social service agen- cy. The rent strikers and their supporters minced no words CITY LIMITS/December 1981 12 naming Rabbi Fischer as the chief culprit in their troubles. Charging that he was bent on driving them from their homes, they challenged the city to bring him to account. Some 250 strong, they marched on the Kingston Avenue building that doubles as Fischer's private management office and Chevra's headquarters and then on to Fischer's Montgomery Street home. At its zenith, the rent strike included a dozen Fischer- owned or managed buildings, all of which told a tale of strik- ingly uniform dimensions: large, four or five story corner walk-ups, located in the midst or at the frin e of the Luba- vitcher community, all tenanted by families, most of them Hispanic or black (one building in the strike, 658 Montgom- ery Street, housed mostly older, non-Hasidic Jews); all suf- fered a sudden decrease, and then a cessation of essential services upon purchase by a new owner who invariably emerged as Rabbi David Fischer under one or another cor- porate guises. The scenario was always folIo ed by offers- and sometimes threats-to move. Then, as the various build- ings shared their tales with each other, an important link in the stories appeared: all of the buildings had been accepted for some form of government-subsidized renovation. But while tenants and others waited for the official response to their charges and the Bellamy report, the storm gradually subsided. The Bellamy report, and the massive re- search behind it, was offered to federal, state and local investigative agencies for action. Soon, the FBI, the Department of Labor and the city's own investigation depart- ment were scrutinizing the finances and practices of Chevra. Those new probes, however, turned out to be ' only more thunder and lightning, signifying no change or relief for the tenants. In their wake, the high waters of the Crown Heights tempest left power and funds in the same hands, with only a couple of names and titles rearranged. Today, when told that a two-and-one-half year probe by the city's Department of Investigation is soon to emerge, most of those involved in the Fischer/Chevra struggles of 1979-80 nod knowingly and smile. "Rabbi Fischer Wa5 exposed," said Ai Rowe, a soft- spoken civil servant who was part of the only harassment case thus far won against Fischer, for management practices at 836"Montgomery Street. "It was on TV, radio and in the , papers. The City Council President herself denounced what was going on. But what's changed? He's still going on about his business." The side people are on in this strife-tom territory deter- mines their viewpoint of that ongoing business. To Rabbi Yisroel Rosenfeld, Executive Director of the Crown Heights Jewish Community Council, the charges against Rabbi Fischer have never been anything more than "a smokescreen" for political interests aligned against the Hasidic Lubavitcher community . "If they (the allegations) were really true, do you think he'd be out walking the streets," asked Rosenfeld. "Wouldn't he have been indicted?" Bruce Fogerty, an attorney for the city's Department of Investigation insists that the department's fmdings will soon emerge, but warns that they will show "nothing shattering." And, while the 001 spent the past two-and-one-half years looking into Bellamy's and other charges, there has apparent- ly been little political incentive to push for results. "It's something that has basically gotten' lost in the bureaucracy," said Bellamy aide Rosina Abramson recently. "The City Council presidency isn't'a law enforcement agency and there is little we can do at this point." A deal to save a section 8 job Just how little the hubbub of three years ago changed 'the continuing political power of Rabbi Fischer is illustrated by the events surrounding the rehabilitation of two Crown Heights buildings using federal Section 8 subsidies. Both 1577 Carroll Street and 440 Brooklyn Avenue were fully occupied when Fischer sought federal funds to rehabili- tate them in 19]7. And, like 836 Montgomery and other buildings, tenants said that conditions began to go rapidly down hill after Fischer took over. But when the rent-con- trolled tenants of the two buildings brought their charges of harassment before a departmental hearing officer at the city's up at the buildings department, blocking the renovation per- mit Fischer sought. Under city law, the "flag" meant no construction could proceed until the harassment charges were either dropped or proven. Should the charges be sustained, and then signed by the rent control commissioner, in addition to any fines levied against the owner, the apartments could be kept under rent control for a minimum of one year, and then only removed with the commissioner's approval. The complaints appeared to be the kiss of death for the $4.3 million project for which, according to the sponsor, Chevra, almost all the financing was in place. But instead of collapsing, the rehab was rescued by some timely maneuvering. Marvin Schick, a former administrative assistant under Mayor John Lindsay and an influential voice in Brooklyn and City Hall, was brought in to piece together a rescue plan. Painstakingly, a deal was arranged so thatthe rehabilitation would go forth. Under the terms of the agreement, which was signed by Housing Commissioner Anthony Gliedman and Rabbi Fischer in December, 1980, Fischer and Chevra would bow out of the rehab, turning sponsorship of the job over to the rent control board, the plunge into vacancy was, at least tem- /365 Carroll Street porarlly, halted. The harassment charges caused a flag.to go 13 CITY LIMITS/December 1981 Crown Heights Jewish Community Council. Fischer, the deal specified, would have nothing more to do with the project, save for occasional consultations. With a nod toward the departmental hearing at the rent control board, the agree- ment obligated the sponsor to set up a fund, managed by a trustee, out of which any city fines would be paid, as well as any harassment damages levied against Chevra or Fischer by the courts. The fund was to be equal to four percent of the project's gross mortgage-about $140,000. The project spon- sor was also mandated to reach out to all tenants who may have been displaced and advise them of the existence of the project fund, as well as let them know about rent-up and their rights as former occupants once the apartments were completed: Thus, while the lawyers of one wing of HPD, the Division of Rent Control, argued the tenants' case against Fischer, lawyers of the Department of Development were working out a deal to free the project from interference by the harassment cases. The estimated profit on the project to the sponsor was approximately half a million dollars. "One of our most important criteria is to recycle the housing," said Andrew Chertoff, presently Assistant Commissioner for Rehabilitation and at the time counsel to the Department of Development who wrote the agreement with Fischer. "We wanted to penalize the wrong-doers, and yet not deprive the community." With the agreement signed, and Marvin Schick made trustee for the fund, the rehab went forward. The last tenant 370 Kingston A venue, management and rental offlcefor Chevra and private Fischer corporations. CITY LIMITS/December 1981 14 to finally move out of 1577 Carroll Street was Melvin Grant who had helped coordinate the rent stri es. Grant finally packed his bags and pulled out, after months of living without heat or hot water, in Decemlier, when the agree- ment between Gliedman and Fischer was signed. The harass- ment cases of both 440 Brooklyn Avenue and 1577 Carroll Street were completed by the hearing officer last spring. They still, however, remain unsigned and unreleased. According to an HPD spokesperson, the cases have had to be rewritten before Assistant Commissioner for Rent Control, Robert Muniz, can sign them. "We want the strongest possible case," said the spokesperson. According to those familiar with the sti unsigned cases, the opinions are basically similar to the 36 Montgomery harassment suit that was signed last June. In that decision, hearing officer Paul Blank wrote that there had been "over- whelming testimony" that Fischer and his were guilty of being "callous and disruptive influences and had caused "intentional interference with the repose, use and enjoyment of the building." Fischer and agent, Joseph Blizinsky who is on the board of the Council, were fmed $1 ,000 on each of eight counts-including one for intent to cause vacating of the building. If, as Chertoff insists, the incentive for the agreement bet- ween Fischer and HPD was to prevent him from benefitting from similar harassment activities at the Section 8 buildings, there is little to show in the way of enforcement. Not one of the major aspects of the agreement have been carried out. According to Schick, there has never been any need for the project fund for paying fines and damages, therefore none was ever established. That, he said, has obvi ted any need for the quarterly reports he is mandated to proVide HPD under the agreement. Nor has HPD requested any. Richard Singer, partner of Hirschen and Singer, a firm representing many Section 8 sponsors including Chevra and then the Council, said he had been informed by his client that agreements with all the former tenants had been reached. Singer, however, declined to share the agr ements with a reporter, for fear of "starting a bidding war" among the former occupants. But, in the most glaring noncompliance ith the agree- ment, Rabbi Fischer has continued to handle all the process- ing of the project with HUD and is openly serving as manager for the project through Shipur Masbchunna of which he is the principal, despite specific language in his agreement with HPD forbidding him to do so. How did happen? "The city is aware," explained Singer, "that we can't make the entire Lubavitcher community disappear in relation to these properties. The reality is that he [Fischer] is tlie most familiar with the area." Who's Who in Crown Heights? Rabbi Fischer's continuing role as de facto sponsor of the project, known as Carbrook Apartments, is not surprising, least of all to city officials. As things settled dQwn again after the Bellamy report, Chevra's role as the ho sing developer for the Lubavitcher community was quietly passed to the Crown Heights Jewish Community Council, creating the transP<i!'ent fiction that the Council was itself a housing developer. It's a charade that Rabbi Rosenfeld himself readily admits. Although Fischer is neither board member nor staff to the Council, he remains its housing packager. Depending upon who is asking, the Council has different descriptions of its relationship to Chevra. In its submission to HUD to sponsor 117 units of Section 8 substantial rehab, CHJCC described Chevra as its own "housing component'" and, as it told Con Edison recently after the utility's public affairs of- ficer visited the community, "Regarding special housing programs for Crown Heights, have your housing specialist contact Rabbi David Fischer, who heads up our housing corporation." But, in a submission to the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal recently, Chevra was described, at somewhat more of an arm's length distance, as "a local organization that sponsored redevelop- ment of Ihousing in Crown Heights and manages several apartment houses." . Asked ' directly" Rosenfeld himself is somewhat more straightforward about the connection between Fischer and the Council .. "He runs all the housing for us," said Rosenfeld simply. "It's a-quasi-official relationship." He could add that the "quE;lSi" of the relationship is all that allows the city and others to say'they are drawing a distinction between the two. A ,hotel for Carroll Street Recently, the Council made a bid t6 include 836 Montgomery Street and other preperties in an application for . federal Section 235 low interest mortgage subsidies for both new construction and rehabilitation. That plan w.as dropped, however, when federal funds for the program were cut. But, in the pattern established in its Section 8 designated buildings, the Council is currently awaiting the verdict of the federal Small Business Administration on its plan to turn a partially-occupied building at 1365 Carroll Street into a hotel. The Council is seeking an SBA loan guarantee to cover a $1.5 million loan from Manufacturers Hanover Trust that will allow it to create 75 transient and perrnanenthotel rooms. Per day costs for the rooms are targeted at $40, said Rosenfeld, but the Council is presently trying to "work out the numbers" with the SBA which has said rentals should be closer to $60 per day. Who would stay at the hotel? "Visitors to the neighbor- hood," said Rosenfeld. As the world headquarters of the Lubavitcher movement, and home of its leader, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, there is a substantihl traffic of students and pilgrims in and out of the neighberbood, and an apparent scarcity of boarding space. Visitors are housed in several buildings belonging to Rabbi Fischer, in apartments vacated by tenants who have opted to leave rather than remain. 1365 Carroll is one such Fischer building and is presently about half occupied, with some of the empty apart- I ments used by those passing through. Those tenants who have been there between ten and 16 years are all ' black or Hispanic. Most of them have been in and out of housing court with Rabbi Fischer in recent years. One family that has lived there for the past 14 years is Luisa and William Campiz and their son Bill. - William and Luisa Campiz in the entryway of 1365 Carroll Street, Like the other long-time tenants, they have fought an 00- again, off-again campaign for repairs and basic services since Rabbi Fischer's Teav Realty Corporation purchased the building. They glumly point out the crude bulging plaster patches in the living room, kitchen and bedroom ceilings where court-ordered Fischer repairs have been made not just once- or twice but several. times. "The apartment upstairs is empty," says Mrs. Campiz, a former teacher's aide who is now completing an education degree so that she can teach. <"<-When someone stays there, the plumbing always breaks and it all comes down," .she said gesturing at the ceiling. But while the other ,l.enants of 1365 Carroll Street have had to fight for heat' and hot warer and basic repai(s for several years, the Campizes have had a larger dose of tei'l:a{lt pain. William Campiz was a cabinetmaker for the forty ,years before the day he tt;ipped over a sp!intered door frame in,t,he entryway' Of 1365. T The wQod beneath the iron frame had cracked and splintered long before and had been left unre- leaving a long menacing splinter. Cainpiz tried to break his fall with his arm, and that move caused him to rip all of the tendons in his right arm, and spend three weeks in the hospital. Despite surgery, he emerged unable to raise his arm above hiS shoulder, which was not use to a man who maCJe his living swinging a hammer. Forced to retire early on social security and pension checks below what he and his wife had anticipated, they decided that the landlord should help tbern carry part of their new burden. 15 .CITY 1981 Contacting a law firm whose name he got from the radio, Campiz said he wanted to sue the owner for damages. After giving over all his medical papers, Campiz received a letter some months later from the attorney saying that it had been discovered that on the day of the accident the building had no liability insurance. Therefore, the attorney informed Campiz, the firm would no longer pursue the case nor represent him in any matter. The Campizes received the letter with resignation. They have found, since Rabbi Fischer purchased the building, that victories are few and far between. Eighteen months after the accident, the door frame is still unrepaired and the same fat splinter still springs in the air when the door is opened. To the Campizes, and other tenants such as Ella Dingle, a I5-year tenant, Utilrna Greenidge who has lived there for 13 years and has been struggling recently to get some building-wide repairs, the plans to turn their build- ing into a hotel is news to them. Only Shalom Levine, who has lived in the building for six months with his wife and children while he awaits the purchase of a home nearby, was aware of the plan. "Rabbi Fischer told me when I got the apartment from him," said Levine, shaking his head that " none of his neighbors who were gathered in the lobby telling two visitors their troubles were aware of the plan. "Whoever lives in the building has agreed to move," in- sisted Rabbi Rosenfeld. "If they so desire, they'll be relocated." Admitting that the building is in "pretty terrible shape" he described it as a "transient situation." The task of developing the hotel makes up a good chunk of the proposal the Council submitted to the state housing division recently for an $80,870 grant under the Neighbor- hood Preservation Companies program. That application . calls for the state to pay partial salary costs I r a Director, a secretary and administrative costs, as well as fees for an architect and a packaging consultant all of whom will be involved in developing the hotel. Rosenfeld, owever, is not getting involved at this stage in the project." nstead, he said, Rabbi Fischer is handling its development. Some timely weatberization for Fisc er buildings The low proflle Chevra has been forced to take since the Bellamy report accused it of spending federal funds to improve buildings belonging to board mem ers apparently hasn't kept it from benefitting from other oPI?Ortunities. The Council has received a total of $265,000 i two contracts from the State of New York to weatherize apartment build- ings inhabited by low income tenants. Weatherization contracts are much sought after by com unity groups, allowing them to deliver genuine assistance t@ buildings and tenants in need. Under the program, which spends federal dollars administered by the state, landlords get such improve- ments as new thermal pane windows, doors an.d roof repairs. They aren't obligated to pay for any of the work, although they can supplement the federal funds with their own to do larger jobs. The cost of each unit under the Council's budget is $600. The community group must verify that at least two- thirds of the tenants in the building are 10 income and coordinate the work, usually done by a private contractor. Thus far, Rabbi Fischer's buildings have c;lone especially The ongoing Section 8 rehabilitation of 440 Brooklyn Avenue, one of two buildings where a harassment suit by former tenants is still pending. CITY LlMITS/Dece{Tlber 1981 16 well under the Council's contract. Of just seven mUltiple dwellings weatherized, said Samuel Light who runs the program, four , belong to Fischer. All four of these-760 Montgomery Street, 701 Empire Boulevard, 456' Brooklyn Avenue and 601 Crown Street-were previously cited in the Bellamy report as privately-owned buildings belonging to Chevra board members where Chevra-administered federal funds were spent. While that overlapping has so far not been a problem for the Department of State which administers the program, the Council has run afoul of the rules by not weatherizing apart- ments where minorities lived. Last year, when the Council weatherized 150 dwelling ~ t s by Light's count, only four or five of those apartments were occupied by minorities. "Last year, we had several meetings with the state about our goals and priorities," said Light, as a result of which the number of minority apartments has substantially increased. "This year," he said, "we have done 40 or 50 minority apartments.' , Fair housing? Opening its services and buildings to minorities is a troubling issue to the Council as it is to those Chevra-man- aged buildings where rehabs have taken place. The project comprising 1577 Carroll and 440 Brooklyn, known collectively as Carbrook Apartments, is the latest in a long line of Fischer-developed HUD projects to be reprimanded for poor rental policies. HUD has consistently faulted the managers and sponsors (both operated by Fischer under different names) for such things as failing to advertise the apartment's availability in any publications that could conceivably reach a minority audience, for not displaying an equal opportunity sign at the project site or at the rental offices. In at least two projects, HUD field monitors had to , void an entry log where applicants' names were entered without reference to when they had actually arrived. Fischer projects have relied on a first-come, first-serve system of rent-up, thus making the logs the arbiter of who gets in. Several Black and Hispanic tenants have taken their com- plaints of discrimination in gaining entry to the rehabilitated buildings to higher levels. At least four of these have received new apartments as settlements ordered by the city or state human rights commissions. One black woman applicant, Doreen Maxan, protested to the state human rights division when she was denied an apartment for failing to submit proof of the validity of her high school diploma. Represented by the Open Housing Center, Maxan was awarded a new apartment with no security deposit. The correspondence between Fischer and HUD about rental problems is voluminous and letter after letter details weary-sounding treks by HuD field workers to inspect Fischer's operations. But in spite of all efforts to keep the rental proper, those corrections are only a small salve for what many in the community see as an open, unhealed wound. Regardless of the overwhelming number of minority people who lived in the buildings rehabbed by Fischer/Chevrai CHJCC, HUD has approved "affIrmative fair marketing" plans for each project that call for marketing the apartments to whites because of what the sponsor describes as the "racial imbalance in the community." No help from above When leaders of the 1979-80 rent strike first began to see an overall pattern to the problems in Fischer's buildings, they turned desperately to elected officials for assistance. A note- book AI Rowe kept 'during the first year of his building's rent strike painstakingly details phone calls, letters and visits to officials in search of help. An entry in the notebook reads: I "4/29179: Met with Councilmal1 [Theodore] Silverman and stated our complaints-very fruitful mj!Cting." Followed immediately by an entry in a different cdlored ink: "Never received reply.'" "The only person that helped us was Carol Bellamy," says Rowe today. "She got our hearings at rent control started with just a phone call." Before Bellamy, the only person willing to sit down and work with Rowe and other tenants was Curtis Trueheart of the Metropolitan I Council on Housing's Crown Heights chapter. A union organizer by day and a housing organizer by ni,ght, Trueheart helped pull together all the different buildings that came to him complaining of harassment. A recent reunion of Trueheart, AI Rowe and Melvin Grant who worked together trying to hold the hundreds of tenants in Fischer-owned buildings in a single rent strike, was a little like a meeting of war veterans. Kingston A venue, main shopping strip oj the Crown Heights .ILubavitcher community, 17 CITY LIMITS/December 1981 "Back then," said Trueheart, "we didn't know the master plan. We didn't realize all of what he was up to. We tried to meet with him, but all we would get was an emissary. That's when we called off negotiations and called a rent strike. Their efforts to close the valve that seemed to be fueling Fischer's harassment led them to HUD where they met several times with officials. One high level meeting was with HUD Area Manager Allan Weiner and Housing Director Alexander Naclerio. "It was a time when the tenants of some buildings were being forced to live in just half their apart- ments, because of all the work going on," recalled Trueheart. "At 349 Crown Street (another Section 8 rehab 'carried out with tenants in place') they had to hang blankets over the windows because they had ripped out the frames and the sashes, they had nothing but holes. They had their furniture stacked in the center of the room because the weather was coming in, but they had no place else to go. But at HUD, they acted surprised, said they would look into it, and that was it. We were on a merry-go-round." The Bellamy report, the trio recall, was the sole glimmer of hope in an official gloom, the spark they were sure would make the other politicians sit up and take notice. "Al and me walked all over Crown Heights one night," remembered Melvin Grant, "with about fifty copies of the report, giving them out to tenants in the buildings mentioned in the report." "It was 'flustrating' ", says Trueheart, coining a favored term. "AlI we'd get was a shoving aside." In the view of Trueheart, Rowe and Grant, Fischer has escaped unscathed from a series of troubles that should have been his undoing. "His job is almost done," said Rowe, who with his daughter, is one of 14 tenants in his 40 apartment building left since the rent strike. What was that job? "I'll put it this way," answers Rowe, "we weren't bad or rowdy tenants. There weren't any cops coming around the buildings. We were working families. I'm sure this would only happen around here-places where mostly blacks live. I see no other reason why he would want to run us out."
Black-Jewish relations is a subject approached with much trepidation in New York City. The mildest of people have been known to grow vehement on the subject. The Crown Heights confrontation, which has taken on other forms, including vigilante violence and openly racial gerrymander- ing is one instance where that debate takes on a very human face. The hesitation of some officials to spring into action could be traced to the intricacies of that dilemma. Or, less charitably, the motivating factor could be the much-vaunted voting power of communities such as the Lubavitcher, who inevitably cast huge majorities in their districts for their favored candidates. But whatever the reason, almost every level of power in New York City has ~ h o w n no interest in pursuing the harass- ment-dispiacement and government subsidies cycle that has decided so much of the recent history of the housing stock in that neighborhood. Nor have the charges of malfeasance emanating from the City Council President's office received CITY LiMITS/December 1981 18 the scrutiny they might have were they aimed elsewhere. When an attorney of the city's Department of Investigation asked Gary Deane, one of the two principal authors of the Bellamy report for an interview, it lasted, as Deane recalls, for "about half-an-hour or forty-five minutes." Deane brought along most of the six to eight months of research he and others on Bellamy's staff had accumulated. "I think it kind of blew their minds that we had so much. They said, "Wow, we'll have to schedule a lot of meetings 0 get through all of this.' That was the last I heard from them."O CLETfERS Garden ApartmeDts: Who Dunnit? To the Editor: With reference to your article on Garden Apartments in your October issue and the captioned accompanying photo- graph, we submit the following: We strongly resent being associated in any way, either by innuendo or connotation, with the very negative article as though we are the guilty party. Your writer, photographer and your entire editorial staff have failed in their prudent responsibilities to obtain the facts and to print the truth. The facts are as follows: 1. Cloverdale Estates: Formerly part of Heather Gardens, known as Section No.5, Cloverdale Estates is bound by Cloverdale Boulevard, 67th Avenue, 69th Avenue and 230th Street, an area which encompasses two square blocks an. which is completely vacant and has been for 'over two years. 2. The Developer: Sidney Kalikow Development Corp., a totally responsible organization for over 50 years in Queens, heretofore in apartment houses mainly, is highly respected in the industry as well as in the community. There has never been any negative involvement anywhere. 3. The Site: After years of frustration and false promises from others, the surrounding community will finally see the realization of their hopes. When finished, all the buildings will be completely rebuilt and will consist of 179 condomin- ium units ranging from one bedroom to three bedroom duplex with playroom and priced for the middle income public. Since all of the above obviously differs from your article, and since all this wiJl clean up an existing eyesore and will increase property values in the community, we definitely are not the "bad guys." We therefore expect a retraction of the photograph in conjunction with your article or another article telling how it really is'. Barney Millman Vice President, Operations SIDNEY KALIKOW DEVELOPMENT CORP. 19 We regret that our picture of the vacant Cloverdale Estates, also known as Section 5 of Heather Gardens, may have characterized all the events described in this article which focused on the current plight of many garden apartment dwellers. But we would like to point out t/lat this two-square . block area once housed some 260familieswho, between 1978 and 1979, were removed from their homes in very much the same way that Sol Gilman is now clearing the Central Gardens complex to make way for the "Villas of Forest Hills. " In the last days, in fact, the 500 families remaining in the other sections of Heather Gardens formed a human chain against the bulldozers to protect the remaining 26 families in Section 5 as well as to protest the manner in which Gerald Guterman was harassing them to leave. Although Millman claims "There has never been any negative involvement any- where" we have to believe that the activities of Kalikow and Guterman .are intertwined. Guterman sold Section. 5 to Sidney Kalikow in April, 1980, but Iitil(ation is still oendine as four different mortgagees and mortgagors are involved in the property. Also, the remaining Heather Gardens tenants who complain of vandalism and the unkempt appearance of Cloverdale Estates also pay rent to Kalikow properties, the receivor appointed after Guterman filed for bankruptcy and Jamaica Savings Bank foreclosed on the occupied sections 'oj' the complex. Barney Millman, Sidney Kalikow's spokesman, claims no "link" between Sidney Kalikow DevelQpment Corporation and Guterman, nor any other Kalikow. When questionedfurther about the relationship Millman warned us: "I play hard . .. " and insisted we retract any connection inferred by the picture. We wonder if what he meant by "hard" is similar to the manner in whch the long-vanished tenants of Section 5 were treated. 0 Editors. Public Housing Focus
To the Editor: Your recent edition of City Limits (October, 1981) which focussed on the public housing program in New York City was, by far the most thorough and objective coverage of the program .as a whole that I have seen in a long time. Although the articles pointed out some of our many diffi- culties, the thrust of the issue clearly supported the concept of public housing and specifically endorsed the program in New York City. As you know, we are seriously embattled by proposals made by the Administration to reduce our operating subsidy severely. Your issue of City. Limits is a timely reminder that decent and compassionate social programs such as public housing should not be capriciously abandoned. Val Coleman Director of Public Information New York City Housing Authority CITY LIMITS/December 1981 '- .' T HE NEWYORK PUBLIC SER- vice Commission, regulator of all major telephone, electric, gas, water and some rail utilities in the state, has granted to Con Ed alone, some $1.8 billion in rate increases since 1972. In the last year, Con Ed received a $450 million increase and was cheerily admonished by a Public Service Commission official for asking too little. This is the first of a two part report on the Public Service Commis- sion; the first will explore the history of the PSC, the second part the PSC policy line on rates and service. No other public agency has been so readily identified with government failure and incompetence. Most New Yorkers would attribute no small share of venality in the Commission's persistent leniency toward cash-hungry utilities from Buffalo to Long Island. When the New York Post (with what has become classic Post-style grace) published the home addresses and phone numbers of the commissioners after the Con Ed increases, hapless ratepayers harrassed the regulators at home for weeks. Democracy in action. The Public Service Commission was founded as part of the movement toward consolidation within the electric indus- try, a process which proceeded in fits and starts during the first decade of this century. Con Ed acquired generat- ing systems throughout the city in neighborhoods like Flushing and Flat- bush; such mergers were characteristic of the centralization of power production ih urban areas throughout the country. As the system expanded, the sudden, un- planned, growth of customers in all classes contributed a large measure of disorder and instability to the fragile network of power lines and plants. Transmission facilities needed to be coordinated, rates needed to be made uniform and, in general, some type of governmental supervision was necessary to rationalize an industry in danger of collapsing into technological chaos. A shining gem of blue-chip reform, the National Civic Federation, presented a sophisticated and articulate alternative to the hopelessly divided constituency for public ownership then emerging as part of a national dialogue regarding the par- CITY LlMITSlDecember 1981 . I The Public Service Commission: Which Public? At Whose service? .... / BY RICHARD SCHRADER New York State's Public Service Commission-like those around the country-is supposed to be monitor, regulator and buffer between utilities and the consuming public. But since its inception, argues the author, the PSC has been more lapdog than watchdog. Here's how that rela- tionship began. ticulars of the developing political econ- omy. The federation stressed the principle of tripartite representation of labor, business and that was later to become a primary feature of government boards, commissions and agencies. The federation, by its insistent denial of class interests, helped mute political voices whose tones bespoke class conflict. It subsequently cleared the ground for harvesting by that segment of society, whose concerns were intimately bound to the existing set of social relations. In 1905, the federation created the Commission on Public Ownership of Public Utilities. From 1905-1907, the Federation conducted investigations of public ownership under the direction of 20 Richard Schrader is Director of Energy Project of the New York State Wide Senior Action Council. Melville Ingalls, chairman of the Big Four Railroads. A special team of researchers were dispatched to Europe and the West Coast to examine first- hand, the effects and the costs of public power on municipalities. puring the collection of this data, Samuel Insull, a founder of the NCF and a secretary to Thomas Edison, hardly disinterested participant, went public with his en- chanted vision that outlined the manner in which a public utility could distribute the pleasure of heat and light while not forfeiting an electric opportunity to fill the coffers Qf power companies from coast to coast for generations. The magnate approved of government regulation, not clumsy government ownership. His precise d ign was matched with flawless perfection by the final, three volume, report issued early in 1907 by the Commission. Public utlities would be best conducted and operated by private monopolies, the study concluded, chartered and regulated by an appropriate state agency under a system of uniform records and accounts. Each utility would be assigned a general franchise area for a fixed period of time, free from irritating competitors. T HE COMMISSION'S WORK narrowed the public power debate then taking place. Public power was now pigeonedholed as a radical, impractical enthusiasm, an adjunct to the costly wel- fare state. Privately-owned companies, molded by a "reformed" free enterprise electric system, were buttressed by the
. .. The 1931 report stated: UThe PSC . .. has in effect, surrendered to the power companies the right to charge whatever rates . .. their business and the monopoly of their enterprise will support. " underlying principles of the regulating , structure; the experts appointed to the commission accepted all the ruts and the rhythms of the newly fashioned frame- work within which utilities would now operate. That monopolies should be appropriated a guaranteed annual profit proved an agreeable heresy to the old economic faith of sink-or-swim-capital- ism for both regulator and regulated alike. In 1907, the Wisconsin and New York Public Service Commissions, after a season of furious lobbying efforts on the part of the National Civic Federation and individual bankers and industrial- ists, began practicing the complex, con- tradictory art of serving both the public and the utilities. Within months, these 21 two premier agencies and their descend- ant commissions throughout the country were grappling with harshly inadequate tools of their agency charters. In 1907. the New York City government appealed to the PSC for a reduction of the current railway rates for streetcars. For five years, the rail company continually ap- pealed the commission's decision to the state court. Eventually, the Supreme Court ruled that a regulatory agency cannot decree a rate reduction without due compensation. The private com- panies had successfully argued that if the government agency enforced a rate decrease, the difference between the original and the decreased rate repre- sented governmental expropriation of private property without due process of CITY LIMITS/December 1981 law. BlIt, if the regulating warriors were ill-equl\>ped to slash rates, they could surrender with the sweetest reparations. In those innocent days before the present age of overkill, electric com- panies did not request a rate increase double their needs or expectations. The rate hike proposal guaranteed a healthy (sometimes robust) profit and was met from inside the regulatory camp by only the most delicate and sympathetic chal- lenges. According to a study gathered together by the Home Rule League in 1914, from 1907-1914 the Wisconsin PSC granted 75 percent-l00 percent of the proposed rate increases to utilities in 52 of 54 proceedings. were two attempts at rate reductions, overturned. In 1912, gas rates were raised from $1.00 per thousand cubic feet to $1.25 per thousand. By 1910, both the Wisconsin and New York Commissions granted power companies a 10 percent rate of return on their investment in plant.and equipment plus a 2 percent depreciation allowance, although the Supreme Court had suggested a limit of 5-6 percent profit on equity. The regulatory agencies preferred to establish a rate commen- surate with the dividends then accumulated by the oil industry'S stockholders. When the commissions held rigorously to established precedents, consumers were pressed to pay grander tribute to the utilities. When commissions did tinker with previously ordained policy, ratepayers rarely received the benefits so graciously bestowed upon the private monopolies. In 1909, 25 large manufac- turers petitioned the New York PSC for a substantially decreased rate for water. By 1913, after haggling the new schedules through courts, the PSC unveiled their most far-reaching invention, the declin- ing block-rate structure. Under this for- mula, the customer who consumed the most quantity of water (soon to be gas and electricity) was charged a lower rate per gallon than more timid users. The scheme became writ in concrete for utility regulators across the land. B y 1929, THE COMMISSIONS provided an almost helpless target for politicians out to gather some votes from a fickle flock. The New York State Legislature unleashed ten dozen politi- cians in search of publicity, to study CITY LIMITS/December 1981 possible alternatives to utility regulation. A special was hastily designed to cross;-examine a variety of utility executives on pricing policies. Under questioning by Frank Walsh, a member of the committee, Mathew Sloan, the former President of New York Edison, admittedl that the holy power of rate reduction was invested in the corporate vessel of the private electric companies. Sloan jovially exclaimed that of the twelve rate deductions from 1914-1929, all were made on the initiative and good graces of the Edison Company with no the extreme economic emergency today, public regulation will have failed and re- course will be had to some system which will be more responsible to the change of economic conditions IUld the public need." Maltbie had responded to the drastic changes in the political landscape wrought by the depression. While prices everywhere declined 40-50 percent, the cost of electricity rose some, 15 percent in the year of Franklin D. Roose- velt's inauguration. Con Ed was charg- Public power was' now pigeonholed as' a radical, impractical enthusias'm, an adjunct to the costly welfare state. pressure at all from the PSC. The Committee's final report sunk a few further harpoons into the flank of the writhing whale. "The PSC has been unwilling or has been obliged to sanction rates which cannot possibly be justified. It has dodged every vital issue of a controversial character because of its fear of court reversal and has in effect, surrendered to the power companies the right to charge whatever rates the con- ditions of their business and the mono- poly of their enterprise will support. " When the commission released a strongly worded minority repQrt and a tepidly moderate majority recommenda- tion in 1931, the New York State Legislature under the leadership of Senator Warren Thayer, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Service, consigned both studies to the dustbin of history. Senator Thayer was found later to have been a beneficiary of the Associated Gas and Electric Company's largesse. In 1933, someone inside the collapsing regulatory house had finally noticed the falling chunks of plaster. Commissioner Milo Maltbie, an appointee of New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, chair- man of the frrst PSC from 1907-1915 and a frequent critic of the electric industry, demanded a substantial renovation of the entire neighborhood. "Unless some practical means is found for more promptly dealing with rate complaints in 22 ing 3.9 per kilowatt hour, Brooklyn Edison 4.5. The climate of easy acqui- escence on the part of the past sions and the utiliti 'arrogant gestures in a moment of naticmal calamity, pos sessed the commissi0ner to unsheath a sword stronger than .any weapon ever seen in the previously tranquil regulatory wars. Maltbie, in early 1934, ordered an across the board six percent decrease of rates for every electrical utility in the state. Con Gas, holding four subsidiaries within its corporate womb, scurried to court. In 1935, the New York State Appellate Court offered further testimony to the notion that Con Ed was a recipient of the benign rendering of legal patchwork that girded public utility law in the state. The court struck down Maltbie's decree for the six percent decrease, upholding all other previous rulings on the matter, tightening the rope that bound the Commissioner's hands. Regulation, everywhere, stands on that single tenet. There have been few challenges either legally or politically to the arrangement that protects stock- holders before consumers or the environ- ment. The Supreme'Court, the regula- tory agencies, the utilities and the government knew too well the future shape of the Ameriqm economy to tamper with such a silccessful formula. 0 A Landlord Comes Back, .' By SUSAN BALDWIN ~ AFfER YEARS OF YOEMAN WORK BY TENANTS and community groups to revitalize a ravaged Upper West Side neighborhood, a one-time landlord notorious among his former tenants has re-emerged, claimjng ownership of buildings that were seized by the city over three years ago when he failed to pay more than $1 million in back taxeS. The landlord, Raleigh Davenport, has fIled suit in both state and federal courts alleging that he is the true owner of 17 city-owned properties, 15 of which are in Manhattan Valley. Davenport has charged that the city took title to them in May, 1978, without properly informing him of the foreclosure proceedings. The city, on the other hand, claims that Daven- port's charges, which resulted in the New York State Supreme Court's restoration of title to him for the 17 propert:es in May, 1981, are invalid because it was never properly served by , Davenport, who won the judgment by default. And the tenants, in the words of one resident ,and community worker, are in "limbo" because they stand to lose their homes if the courts fmd that Davenport is in fact the true owner of the property. "Nobody gets carried away about having the city a,s the landlord, but when this happened in May, 1978, the tenants here were delighted," said Juanita Nesbit, the founder of the tenants association at 157-161 West 105th Street. "When he walked away in late 1977 and the city took the property, we immediately joined the Tenant Interim Lease (TIL) program," she explained. "I don't know who made this mistake. I can't understand how the city would let this happen," Nesbit argued. "Every- one knows that this man completely destroyed this commun- ity because he owned so many buildings and harassed fit IU j ~ i ~ , II I 1 J III ~ ~ II ~ r u,' I I ~ ' everyone in each one, . ,He was a household word-no ser- vices, broken boilers, fires." The matter is presently before a State Supreme Court Judge who must rule on the city's alleged default and make a technical determination about Davenport's filing. According to Andrew Quartner, an attorney with the Debevoise and Plimpton law firm, if the Supreme Court is bound by this stay, "we will have to get permission from bankruptcy court" to overturn it. . City officials are asking the court to reopen the case on the grounds that they were never properly serVed to appear at the May hearing and that the court order returning title to the property was granted and signed without its knowledge. The city's brief also asks that the order be overturned and that the city be acknowledged as the true owner, and the buildings be removed from Davenport's statement of assets in his pending bankruptcy petition. Davenport could not be reached for comment as his tele- phone was disconnected, but it was learned that he had re- quested several extensions from the Supreme Court and had not fIled his responses to the city's charges. ., , Co-op Bank loan, city investment threatened If the court upholds Davenport's case, more than $600,000 in repairs and rehabilitation spent by the city will be lost to him, and a $6 million loan from the National Consumer Cooperative Bank for moderate rehabilitation of seven homesteader buildings on Amsterdam Avenue could be revoked: On August 21, 1981, 'after he had been awarded title to the properties, Davenport, who owes the city some $1.3 million 23 CITY LIMITS/December 1981 in taxes, fIled papers with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, listing the 17 properties as assets. The city was unaware of Davenport's case until he walked into the Department of Housing Preservation and Development in mid-October waiving the court order and claiming title to the properties. Since then, Davenport's re-emergence in Manhattan Valley has resulted in a legal nightmare. "The tenants in the TIL program at 238 West l06th Street were ready to buy their apartments, everybody was happy, the papers were ready to sign, and then the title company said the city doesn't have the title-Davenport does," said Theresa Kilbane, of the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board and a resident of another Davenport building-212 West 105th Street. "We were all shocked, disillusioned, and now because of his case, everything, all the work, has come to a halt." Said another neighborhood tenant, Joachim Rosa, of 147 West 105th Street, "After two-and-one-half years of negotiating with the city for repair money, we had just begun to see the benefits that the Community Management Pro- gram can offer . .. I moved here after Davenport during the transition period when the city had just taken the building ... It was a mess, and it ~ a s in rem, but Davenport was going around still trying to collect rent and intimidate people. He was taking advantage of their ignorance [of the law] and their fear." 145-147 West 105th Street are in the Community Man- agement program administered by the Manhattan Valley Development Corporation. Valerie Asciuto, HPD's general counsel, confirmed that ONE STOP SHOPPING for your DRY WALL PRODUCTS DISTRIBUTORS OF NATIONAL GYPSUM U.S. GYPSUM GEORGIA PACIFIC
BOOM EQUIPMENT UP TO 6 STORIES GYPSUM WALL BOARD DRY WALL STEEL PRO DUCTS DRY WALL SCREWS NAILS JOINT CEMENTS & TAPING TOOLS INSULATION NOISE CONTROL. STRUCTURAL STEEL FRAMING SHAFTWALL SYSTEM COMPONENTS ADHE SIVES & SEALANTS POWER FASTENING TOOLS FIRE RETARDANT LUMBER SUSPENDED & CONCEALED CEILINGS & COMPONENTS STRUC TURAL LUMBER PLYWOOD POWER TOOLS HARDWARE. DOORS & BUCKS-METAL & WOOD (212) 875-9700 550 Hamilton Ave., Brooklyn CITY LIMITS/December 1981 24 work had stopped in all the Davenport buildings, pending the resolution ofthe case but asserted, "He doesn't own the property. We have taken that position and are hopeful that the court will see it that way." In response to Davenport's claim that he was never in- formed of foreclosure proceedings, H ~ Weber, of the city's corporation counsel's office, said, That's nonsense. That issue was dealt with in our papers." Under city law. a landlord with tax arrears has up to one year to repay back taxes. According to ooe insider who asked to remain unnamed, the city claims that Davenport came into its redemption office on the last day of the mandatory filing period with an incomplete application and no money. The papers were stamped. He said he would come back with the money but never showed up again until after the discretionary period when he filed a second application and attempted to pay back taxes onjust one property. His petition was subsequently denied by the Board of Esti:fnate. "We went through the rent strikes, beginning in 1973, and we had the help of Met Council (a tenant advocacy group) and our lawyer," said Nesbit, asserting, "We can do it again. We're together, and we're independent . . . But there's more to this. Landlords are hearing that Manhattan Valley is now considered a valuable community, and they want to come in, raise the rents, and drive us out. That's why we want to go co- op, buy our homes. We won't be moved out and harassed by people like Davenport. "But we still have one major question," she added. "After all the pressure the city has put on us to QUY our apartments, how can they let this happen? How can t ey let him harass us this way?" 0 309 FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK, N.Y. 10016 Specializing in Group Liability, Health Insurance Programs and Fidelity Bonds Contact: Paul Sourifman (212) 684-4770 ., (CITY LIMITS). Manhallan Soho Zat-W. Broadway & Canal St. New Morning Books-169 Spring St. N.Y. Marxist School (151 W. i9 St.) Stand-7th Ave. & W. 14 St. Idle Hour Books-59 Greenwich St. Stand-737th Ave. West 4th St. Books-l48 W. 4th St. Stand-65 W. 14 St. (Sixth Ave.) Stand-Bleecker & W. 11 St. Wendell's Books-302 W. 12 St. Vinny's Variety-2 Horatio St. Stand-385 8th Ave. (W. 29 St.) Unity Books-235 W. 23 St. China Books-l2S Fifth A v ~ . (19 St.) Revolution Books-16 E. 18 St. Stand-Union Sq. East & 15 St. Stand-14 St. & Ave. A Stand-417 Third Ave. (E. 29 St.) Stand-E. 34 St. & Lexington Ave. City Limits is available at these newsstands and book tores. If you know of other outlets for City Limits, please call 239-9423. Tobacco Road-Christopher & 7th Ave. Inner World Books-687 Broadway (3rd St.) Stand-E. 23 St. & Park Ave. So. Readers Stationary-Univ. PI. & E. 9 SI. Paradox Books-128 E. 4th St. Astor Smoke-St. Marks PI. & Third Ave. Eastside Books-34 St. Marks PI. Stand-46 W. 42 St. (5-6 Ave.) Coliseum Books-I771 Broadway (57 St.) Stand-Broadway &: W. 62 St. Stand-2422 Broadway (89-90 St.) Red Letter Books-Amsterdam Ave. & W. 92 St. Magazine Emporium-Broadway &: W .111 St. Stand-Broadway & LaSalle St. Stand-2795 Broadway (107-108 St.) Brooklyn Stand-1521 Kings Highway (E. 15-16 St.) Stand-13 Newkirk Plaza Stand-Cortelyou Rd. & Flatbush Ave. Stand-Bedford & Tilden Stand-Utica & Church Ave. Stand-Bedford & Clarkson Stand-Rogers & Maple Falasha Empire-lOS9 Nostrand Ave. Stand-Washington & Sterling PI. Stand-Myrtle & Ryerson PI. Stand-26 Court St. Community Books-141 7th Ave. Stand-Union St. & 7th Ave. Stand-Hanson ~ 1 . ~ ~ j - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~ - - - - - - - Moving? Don't leave town without City Limits! To make sure your subscription reaches your new address, simply attach your current mailing labei below, and write your new address beneath it. Please allow 4-6 weeks for the address change. 25 Name _________________ _ Address City ____ State ____ Zip City Limits 424 West 33rd St., New York, NY 10001 CITY LIMITS/December 1981 Chemical, Banks ,Urban Finance Representat
caring for you as you carei.-._,.-. your most important clien Servir.es for small businesses and housing concerns: SBA Certified Lender Construction Financing for Low and Moderate Income Housing Chemical Bank's Urban Fjnance Department 140 Broadway New York, N.Y. 10015
THE CHEMISTRY'S JUST RIGHT AT CHEMICAL. M<:mht,r FDIC Lerner, VValker, Levy & 1960 Broadway Rand Memorial Fund , A memorial fund in the name of Esther and Jack Rand, longtime resi- dents of the Lower East Side and . I, New York, New York 10023 Attorneys at Law (21 Tenant Representation Customized Energy Audits Recommendations With Under General Contracting For Retrofit '. Heat Distribution Balancing Gr' lOUAlllOUlllIG LENDER Year Paybacks housing activists has been established to purchase books for the Ottendorfer Library. Esther Rand, Chairperson of the Eastside Tenants Council, was also a member of the Save the Library Committee, a group that was formed in 1966 in support of the public library branch on Second Avenue and 9th' Street. Esther Rand died in June, 1981, a year after her husband Jack died. A bookshelf of works on urban affairs will be established in their honor atthe liqrary. Contributions can be sent by check to Rand Book Memorial Fund, Ottendorfer Library, 135 Second Avenue, New York, NY 10003.0 Here's How BENEC Saves 'You Energy Dollars I Energy Management and Installation rA . r,-"rn' ..... ter Design BENEC Industries CITY LIMITS/December 1981 Complete Energy EffIciency 53 East 34th Street New York. NY 10016 212 689-4499 r Buildings Work Shop EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Neighborhood Housing Services of New York City Coordinates not-for-profit home improvement financing and 1-4 family rehab program operating in 7 NYC neighborhoods. Reports to a Board of Directors. Requires knowledge of housing, demonstrated competence in planning, budgeting, fundraising, staff supervision and ability to interact creatively with community, government and financial leaders. Minimum - Bachelor's degree plus 4 years experience Starting salary- $32,000 Send resumes to: Neighborhood Reinvestment Corp. 1500 Broadway-Suite 800 NYC 10036 Att: Personnel Committee Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer South Bronx Photo Show A photographic exhibition on the revitalization of a South Bronx neighborhood, "Urban Pioneers: Don't Move,Improve-Banana Kelly, The South Bronx" will be presented by the Municipal Art Society and the New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal. The exhibition will appear from December 14 through Decem- ber 31, Monday through Saturday, 11 AM to 5 PM at the Urban Center in Villard Houses at 457 Madison Avenue at 50th Street. For information call the Municipal Art Society at 935-3960. 0 Executive Secretary-Excellent typing. good all-around office skills, small Brooklyn office. cooperative spirit a necessity. Knowledge of Spanish a plus. Opportunity for energetic, co mmunit y-minded person. $13,000-$15,000 plus good benefits. Equal Opportunity employer. Call for appoint ment 622-1900. L. 914-997-1534 GIBSON WINDOWS, INC. Minority Owned Distributor of Thermal Break Alum DHA2.5 H P90 Windows. Also storm win- dows and doors. --------- -- ----------- - -- ----- To: The Editors, CITY LIMITS 424 West 33rd Street, New York, New York 10001 Please enter my subscription to CITY LIMITS. Individuals and community-based org.anizations: o One year 59 (ten issues) 0 Two years 515 (twenty issues) Private businesses, foundations, firms, groups:' banks, government agencies, officials and city wide o One year 525 0 Two years 540 Corporate sustainers 0 550 0 575 o S100 , group rates are available Enclose check or money order for S ___ , payable to ANHD / CITY LIMITS Name: Address: inquire abQut special rates for low income Where are New York City's neighborhoods going? c ~ Limits tells you. Yet. there Is a growing network of - .... - . . . .. . - -- .--- groups and individuals who are tack- Our neighborhoods are chang- ing . .. fast. The pressures are as complex as they are immense. Owner abandon- ment has emptied over 200,000 apart- ments throughout New York City since 1970. Vast city tracts remain rubble- strewn and vacant. Thousands of buildings stand empty and decaying. Some neighborhoods, however, are experiencing a revitalization so rapi d and intense that long-time residents are faced with displacement . Rents are skyrocketing. Co-op and condominium conversions claimed 16,000 rental units in 1980 alone. ling the dilemmas facing our com- munities. They are turning lenders' "redlines" into green ones, aban- doned housing into tenant-managed buildings and rubbish heaps into gardens. They are also fighting for the right of low income tenants to remain in their homes as real estate values escalate, and insisting that there is another side to neighborhood housing besides speculators' profits. Join the thousands of informed peo- ple who read and rely on CITY LIMITS. " ... heartfelt thanks to CITY LIMITS for providing relevant and important reporting of events not easily obtainable from any other source." Martin and Liz Sostre. Tenant Organizers " ... does for tenants what New York magazine does for the trendy elite ... provides service, facts , ideas, information ... a consumer guide for the conscience." Jack Newfield. Village Voice " .. . essential reading for me as a citizen and as a teacher-researcher." Prof. Herbert J. Gons. Columbia University " . . . the bible for anyone concerned about housing, housing budgets, policy, legislation and the plight of tenants in New York Ci ty." Ruth Messinger. City Council Member " ... an invaluable tool and forum in New York City's struggle to preserve decent housing ... an important link between government and organized community people." . Carol Bellamy. City Council President CITY LIMITS Is the magazine that for six years has provided news and analysis-of what is happening to our communities and why. The sale of city-owned buildings: to tenants or landlords? . . The uphill struggle of the National Consumer Co-op bank .. . Saving through fuel- buying plans . .. Evicting the landlord ... Is there fair housing in New York City? .. The battle for open space. These are just a few of the stories CITY LIMITS covered in the past year. In the coming months we will con- ; tinue to look at these and many other issues. We hope you'" join us.
10/2/02 investigation request my wife Karen and I wrote (using the pseudonym "Dr. Bob Smith") and filed with UCLA that triggered the "malariotherapy" investigation of John Fahey MD and other university staff