Joshua Guttman: The Real Slim Shady

I was one of the tenets to be evicted from 247 water st on that Friday night, (maybe the 16th of 2000, all I know is it was a week of finals for myself who was in school at the time and suddenly im being told i don't have a home. I haven’t thought about this for a few years, but recently speaking to some one who has a loft around the corner I was told the tenets won there court case, maybe he was referring to the 35,000 I read about in the article, (which is money I defitntly got none of, but then again I didn’t fight it.) I mean when you have some one telling you to leave and they have the cops standing in back of them, well whom do you call? In fact that night was so surreal I cant believe it to this day. It was around 5:30 or so I remember I heard a knock and went to answer the door, I open the door to see two people standing there and my adjoining neighbor slamming the door on them saying im not talking to you! I wasn't as smart. They said that they’re from the building department and they’re condemning the building. When I asked for how long the looked at each other, smiled and said forever... Now it's Friday im getting ready to go out for the night and now there are people telling me that #1 there condemning the building and # 2 I have an hour, yes an hour to get my stuff out. Me and two of my friends have been living there for around 6 months, and as far as I knew, you pay your rent; you have a lease your ok, well suddenly im on the phone calling my roommates at work saying hey we don’t have a house any more. They didn’t really understand, and neither did I. So after I close the front door I look around and well there wasn’t too much to do or say so I smoked a joint. I remember thinking well the building is filled with cops and ill be talking to them again shortly, but if they take me to jail then ill have a place to sleep.. This sounded better then the other offer I was given when I asked earlier where do I go tonight, They actually told me " will put you up in a hotel in the Bronx for tonight", yea ok. And there were shaky even about that. I spent the next hour stoned and pondering what’s important to take with me, this was interrupted by the city people checking on my progress with getting my things together, I explained that my roommates were on the way, and well need more time. Around the 3rd visit a half hour latter the building department people now had an army of cops, and fire fighters as well as a slew of other complete boners, telling me to get out. And now there were men climbing the fire escape and actually nailing plywood over the windows from the outside. The atmosphere in the building was turning ugly. Some Tenets were refusing to open their doors and were being threatened with force as well as jail. There were lawyers running around and lots of slamming and bagging on doors and the walls. It had been about two hours since the first knock at my door and I guess everyone was taking to long to get out. When my roommates arrived they had been told the deal, and everyone was in disbelief, of course the man we pay are rent to was on his Sabbath and unavailable. Kind of interesting they would do this on a night the actual landlord was unavailable and they knew this and acknowledged it. But that wasn’t nearly as unbelievable as what happened on the fourth time, the inspectors and the police knocked on the door. I had been on the phone with my mom, who was also speaking to a lawyer friend and telling me things to say and ask in a last attempt at some sort of compassion for us. Im standing face to face with this little runt of a man (the building inspector) with his army of cops, the smell of weed emanating from the apt and just hitting them in the face. it was awesome,, no but upon speaking to this man, I was told by him that " He couldn’t sleep another night knowing a child my die in a blazing inferno" so I asked him did he know about this building a week ago, and then two weeks ago. He answered yes to both so I said well then why weren’t you here 2 weeks ago or better yet given us a warning two weeks ago, I mean people have lived here for 15 years. He answered " when we come and put this eviction notice on your door (and pointed to it) then you leave. That was his answer when I also asked about the 30days notice they need to give to people being evicted. When I asked what about the law preventing you from throwing out tenets in the winter, he actually had the balls to state, " Just because you go on the Internet doesn't mean you know anything"! And that was it. I remember looking at the cops behind this man, smiling and feeling like they were serving the public. And by the way the building inspector telling all this to me was wearing a fur cape a holding a cane with diamonds on the handle, No joke! It was unreal.
Eventually we got our things we could carry, and were "given a break" by the city who said they would unlock the door tomorrow for 2 hours so we could get are larger items like beds ect, thanks!! That night we left the building with all the other tenets including the lady from the fifth floor with her kids, she was crying, and it began to snow.
With in 4 hours or so they had the building boarded up and abandon as well as locked. I always wondered if any of my neighbors who bartended who left at say 4:30 for work before this went down and returned in the middle of the night to a padlocked boarded up from the outside building, and knew nothing about it.
That night I slept on a dorm room floor of a friend, then the same for the next week of finals. The following Tuesday me and my roommate (both of us are graffiti writers) went back to the building climbed the fire escape, painted the roof and all the way down the building including over my boarded up windows. We only waited to it was dark so it was early enough that we had quite a crowd watching us from the neighboring building and then spilling into the streets. They recognized us and once I stated " im painting not breaking in" I even got some cheers! We got out of the area and the next night (after absolute no news coverage) bam! The story broke, and the only consolation was that Pablo Diaz from fox five was reporting from in front of the building with are newly painted graffiti beaming over his shoulder.
I didn’t return for around two years to the building. Shortly after all this happened my roommates went back and got our security, plus a little extra (I didn’t ask specifics, but lets just say my roommates stormed in and surprised him, and he (jousha guttman) choose walking instead of a wheelchair.
Since then I lived in 6 apartments in 6 years, none of them feeling like home.
I barely scrapped by and definitely didn’t have the option of taking him to court, I have to pay this months rent, not worry about being in court (which costs money too) just to hear him say im bankrupted, or whatever, I had to survive in the immediate. If my neighbors got money that’s great, he’s an evil man.
The first summer I lived there they were putting in all new water pipes (for an area of abandoned buildings the city claimed they didn’t know any one lived in) why do abandon buildings need new water pipes immediately? Yea it was clear that this was a complete inside job. I never will forget the complete helplessness I felt, and I wont get the over the fact that we were the only building in the blitz to be actually evicted, I have some luck. Recently I heard about the landlords name again. He owned the building in green point that mysteriously went up in flames. I heard they found a homeless guy to blame.

Thanks for writing the article. It's funny I was so affected by this, I was 19 and im just realizing now how much I blocked it out and moved on never looking back or really believed the idea that we would ever be able to return, seriously I mean look how they treated us.

Posted by: john b at October 9, 2006 1:36 PM