'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]
benson, only if you live in the heart of Park Slope and not in the ghetto.
There but for the grace of God….
Did you ever think that maybe these people are living hand to mouth? Maybe they would be homeless if they didn’t live there? How do you know they have $50 to spare or even $10? Just because it’s pocket change for you doesn’t make it so for everyone.
It’s a lovely day out there.
Are you sure it’s “foam?”
Ok, I was going to stay out of this one, because I knew it would get nasty. But the comments have reached their usual conclusions.
There is nothing that gets me going more than a bunch of well-off people telling the poor what to do, or judging what they haven’t done, when none of you have a clue what these people’s lives are like, or what the real conditions of this building are. Most of you see every situation like this through the lenses of your own middle to upper-middle class experiences. Yeah, it would be nothing for YOU to go to the hardware store and buy a $100 lock, or hire someone to do repairs. But she is not you.
If you were a renter in a market rate, or luxury building and the landlord didn’t fix a lock, or some other repair, would you go out and buy one and do it for him? I don’t think so. You would say that was the landlord’s job. So why shouldn’t these people?
I’m sure not everyone is paying $149 a month, I would bet this woman is the only one. Even so, do you know anything about her, her financial situation, her education, skills, medical history, family, extenuating circumstances, anything whatsoever? NO.
But feel free to judge her, call her and her fellow tenants entitled, and assume she and her fellow tenants are living on easy street in cheap apartments in Park Slope, banking their money while living in squalor. There they all are, in the most desirable neighborhood in Brooklyn, while DESERVING people of your income level who want to live there can’t. Yes, 40 years ago, when 5th Avenue was a hellhole that no one wanted to live in, this woman got a rent-controlled apartment, one that she was qualified under city and state regulations to get, risked life and limb to live there, and now, in 2011, actually wants whoever owns the building to repair it, and put locks on the front door, and fix the boiler. The entitled nerve of her and her neighbors.
DeLepp- I made a generalized comment – as did nearly everyone lese- and you made it personal. If you think your comment makes you “charming” I suggest you get a dictionary. Or at least some manners.
bxgrl, did you see the son in the picture, if he’s so concerned about her safety why doesn’t he change the lock?
And you are charming as ever. “Foaming at the mouth”.
Where did that come from DeLepp? Just a gratuitous insult. I think a reading of some of the comments will prove my point. But thanks for your input- as usual, it was worthless.
According to the paper, most of the tenants are elderly and some are sick. Rivera is on oxygen. How anyone can decide without knowing the whole situation, that these people feel “entitled” or that they are somehow deserving of the situation in their building is really projecting.