'Slumlike Conditions' in Foreclosed Slope Building
The Daily News had an article on a group of tenants who live in 294 Fifth Avenue in the Slope and say conditions in the rent-controlled building have deteriorated since the property went into foreclosure a couple years ago and a receiver was appointed to take care of it. The building’s boiler, for example, didn’t…
The Daily News had an article on a group of tenants who live in 294 Fifth Avenue in the Slope and say conditions in the rent-controlled building have deteriorated since the property went into foreclosure a couple years ago and a receiver was appointed to take care of it. The building’s boiler, for example, didn’t work for three weeks this winter, and the front-door lock is broken. Public Advocate Bill de Blasio held a news conference yesterday to support the tenants in seeking a court order that would force the receiver to make repairs. According to the article: “The slumlike conditions at 294 Fifth Ave. spotlight a growing concern: smaller apartment buildings that fall into disrepair in part because the building is overleveraged. ‘We think this is a growing problem around the city that the banks and lenders are not taking responsibility for,’ said de Blasio.”
Park Slope Tenants, de Blasio Team Up to Force Building Repairs [NY Daily News]
And you’ll note that I said “largely all” not “all.”
(If, btw, this were a market-rate building, it would now be mostly if not entirely empty and probably more decrepit. fwiw.)
OK, bring it on.
First of all, I’ll beat the class warfare drum whenever I like. Someone has to drown out the trumpeting of those who have never known want in their lives, making snap judgements on the poor. My main point was that no one here knows squat about the people who live in this building, other than what the article said. No one. To read a short article in the paper and extrapolate that these people are entitled, is inflammatory, to say the least, and here I quote dave:
“they largley all have a sense of entitlement and won’t pay for anything, unlike the way people in normal renting situations behave, where they take care of their apartments and make certain improvements themselves.”
And for stating our opinions, we get jumped on? I don’t think so. The discussion is not whether or not rent control is good, bad or indifferent. I don’t care about tales of relatives, friends and someone you know who knows someone, who is living large in a rent controlled apartment somewhere, the discussion is about these people in this building. Some people seem to think that because one 71 year old woman on oxygen is paying only $149, that she and her neighbors deserve what they get. They do not. They deserve to have habitable apartments, they deserve to have heat in the winter, locks on the door and other necessary repairs.
Why does everyone ASSUME that this woman, or the rest of the tenants are either lying about their financial status, or lying about the conditions of this building? Why don’t they get the benefit of the doubt that what they say is true?
“But there are PLENTY of people in RC apartments making a lot of money…and by that I mean more than $100,000. For all we know this woman will leave an estate of $1.5MM when she dies. Maybe, maybe not.”
We’re not talking about PLENTY of people, we were talking about these people. Somehow I don’t think she’s leaving an estate of $1.5MM, that’s hyperbole, and damning with faint conjecture.
“Did they have a videocam monitoring the situation so that they could verify this fact?”
Does anyone? Really. Is the only acceptable proof a frozen corpse? “Yep, they were really freezing to death.”
“Seriously, I have one question: how do you know that these tenants are poor?”
You can actually ask that? Really?
Why is the protest sign written in Spanish?
Ah, sorry on the $149 thing. That rent seems crazy, and i dont understand how it could exist unless they didnt raise the rent when they could have. Or if she’s part of a share and just giving her fraction.
donatella- well said.
I’m not ragging on poor people.
Actually, you are. Just to say a few things as fact.
“Sitting quietly, doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itselfâ€
I thought frsq’s comments were interesting in that he had comments on the building itself, its appearance and its commercial tenants as he saw it. Also the 149 dollar rent. I really have never heard of a rent controlled rent that low. And there does seem to be an element of political theater to this article and de Blasio which is ok. These businessmen obviously bought a rent control building and the bank obviously made a bad loan and now you have some kind of mess there. What the full story is I don’t think you get from the article.
The kind of crappy service that they describe actually can be seen all over, not to condone it, as a result of foreclosures. My good friend has lived in Styvesant Town in a big, cheap, wonderful, rent stabilized apartment for about 30 years. It was always wonderful until the boom boom time when BIG PLANS were being made for the property and Met Life sold it. New buyer overpaid, tried to coop the place, failed, foreclosed and lo and behold…….my friend……..has a leaking toilet, a refrigerator which shorted out and she froze all last winter. I brought over one of my oil radiator space heaters.
You can argue about rent control all you want. Start a movement and change the law (I believe that rc hurts everyone), but these people bought a rent control building with rent control tenants under the existing legal framework which allows rent control and the owners are responsible for providing basic services under the law.