DOB Shuts Down Sweater Factory
That Greenpoint Blog whose name cannot be spoken brings us news that another illegal artist loft building has been shut down by the Department of Buildings. This time, it was a building at 239 Banker Street known as the Sweater Factory. The beleaguered past of the Sweater Factory, used as residential lofts, includes violation of…
That Greenpoint Blog whose name cannot be spoken brings us news that another illegal artist loft building has been shut down by the Department of Buildings. This time, it was a building at 239 Banker Street known as the Sweater Factory. The beleaguered past of the Sweater Factory, used as residential lofts, includes violation of its zoning as a transient hotel, lack of certificate of occupancy, stop work orders, violations of stop work orders, a $5,000 fine from the DOB, etc. Yesterday afternoon the DOB took off the kid gloves and vacated the building. According to That Greenpoint Blog (TGB), the fire department was not present, and the DOB’s vacate order declared that “occupancy is perilous to life.” The Red Cross was on hand to help find housing for displaced tenants and their pets, and TGB mentioned that the landlord was on site as well. GMAP P*Shark DOB
The Sweater Factory Gets DOBed Again [NY Shitty]
Greenpoint Conversion Mystery on Messerole Ave [Curbed]
Don’t ever rent from this guy. He is brooklyns biggest slumlord. He has taken thousands of dollars from tenants that now do not have homes.
Max Stark
Menachem stark
543 Bedford Ave – Suite 302
Brooklyn NY 11211
Meserole Factory LLC
*138 Ross Street
Brooklyn NY 11211
Don’t ever rent from this guy. He is brooklyns biggest slumlord. He has taken thousands of dollars from tenants that now do not have homes.
Max Stark
Menachem stark
543 Bedford Ave – Suite 302
Brooklyn NY 11211
Meserole Factory LLC
*138 Ross Street
Brooklyn NY 11211
The Red Cross goes to all residential fires and vacates in NYC–something over 2500 disasters last year in the 5 boroughs and three upstate counties. You may not think an apartment fire or a vacate is a disaster, until it happens to you or someone you love.
We (I’m a volunteer) are _not_ funded by tax dollars–the organization is chartered, but not funded, by the federal government, but some chapters get some local money.
We don’t discriminate on zip code, type of building, or demographics. We go, and evaluate the need.
This building has a long history with the housing courts in Brooklyn. The previous landlord of the building evicted the artists who lived there before and many years in court. The building has bad karma. When the area was rezoned this building was not. It is part of the commercial and manufacturing zone. $2300 a month for these lofts with no heat or hot water is no bargain. The days of cheap lofts is over. For the past 25 years artists in the area have been battling their landlords……save your money and energy and look elsewhere.
rob-
Not all hipsters are trustafarians. Trying to find a cheap place to live where you can also make work is not ‘scamming’. How many 20yos (or any other age group) research their landlord’s history, when they’re just psyched to find any place at all?
I know plenty of struggling artists out there living wherever they can, even in their cool clothes. And yes, finding yourself suddenly kicked to the curb is a disaster. Don’t be a jackass.
actually, y’all, the ‘racio-socio-economic makeup’ of this building is not obvious. nor is it nearly as homogenous as it apparently seems easy for you to imagine. nor were the tenants actively engaged in renting illegal lofts. in fact, when leases were signed (and as advertised on craigslist and CORCORAN, as they continue to be), they were presented as entirely legal loft rentals.
yes, one should check that one’s soon-to-be apartment has a valid c of o.
yes, one should check that one’s landlord hasn’t actually been sued several times in the recent past.
yes, one should do an in-depth google search on one’s soon-to-be apartment.
how many of you have done that for EVERY APARTMENT YOU’VE EVER RENTED IN NEW YORK?
seriously. lesson learned but perhaps you should check your scorn and stifle your assumptions before you broadcast them quite so ignorantly.
but yes, they should give them some time to move out.
the “racial-socio-economic makeup” of the building is obvious. It’s 4:30. If they were evicting anyone but affluent white people, it would be on CNN by now.
These guys don’t deserve to absorb the blow for what the landlord was to greedy to do correctly….here’s a post on the Ninjalist blog for the tenants: http://ninjalist.blogspot.com/2009/09/if-you-are-being-forced-from-sweater.html