City Limits Magazine, March 1983 Issue

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Contents
Editorial ....................................... 3
Opinion
A Citizens' Budget Alternative .................. 4
Sbort Term Notes
The Artists' Housing Defeat. ................... 6
Chelsea Permit Denied ....................... 7
New Tactics at Midwood Gardens ............... 8
Tenant Activist on CAB ....................... 9
No Position on Grants Cap Yet ................ 10
New Stafffor Association ..................... 10
Seek Agreement on Elderly Project ............. 11
Banking tlie Unbankable ......................... 12
With the opening of six more offices, the nationally-networked
Neighborhood Housing Services has arrived in New York.
Give Us Pennanent Shelter ........................ 16
Small, local groups are pointing the way towards-deGellt, affor-
dable SROs.
Fines for SRO Evictors ............... " .......... 19
Community Profiles
Organizing the Northwest Bronx ............... 10
Organize!
A Northwest Bronx Rehab .................... 23
People
The Real Grassroots ......................... 2S
FoUow-Up
Tax Victory for Homeowners .................. 26
Legal Briefs
The Forgotten Eviction Clause ........... . ..... 27
Tenants' Tactics
The Renter's Tax Credit ..................... 28
Resources/Events .... .. ................... - ..... 28
Letters ..................................... ' " . 2 9
Review
'The Killing of Angel Street' ................... 30
CITY LiMITS/March 1983 2
Reviewing
Communities
Dear Readers,
This issue contains a new department that will be
a steady feature of City Limits. The examination of
the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coali-
tion contained in the Community Profiles section is
a first effort to take a look at where New York
City's community organizations are today, where
they came from, and where they are headed. The
People section takes a look at one of the stalwartS
of the NWBCCC, Ann Devenney, and the article
on one of the Coalition's member groups' in-
novative efforts to hold on to affordable housing
gives some idea of the kind of work people are
tackling in the north Bronx.
Our examination of the Coalition is by no means
exhaustive. There are dozens of other projects it has
undertaken that need telling to others involved in
neighborhood preservation. But even this brief look
is way overdue for City Limits. We are always pain-
fully aware of what a small slice of the activities
and issues around the city we present each month.
We frequently have to battle our own geographic
biases to get views of what is going on in
neighborhoods with which we are unfamiliar. A lot
depends, therefore,on you who read the magazine
to let us know what is happening that other City
Limits readers need to know about, what you like
or dislike in the magazine, what you agree with or
what you reject. That's what our letter column is
for, and we wish it held a lot more mail than it
does. We're willing to give you the space, if you're
willing to write - even a note - about what you
think.
We're also announcing with this issue a campaign
to try to gather subscriptions for us and to raise
funds f<;>r community organizations at the same
time. We'll make a one-third kickback of the cost
of a one-or two-year sub to any group you
designate. See details elsewhere in the magazine. In
order to survive,we desperately need to grow, just
as many community groups do. Please ask your
group to take advantage of this joint fundraising.
Call us at (212) 239-8440 for more information.
Sincerely,
The City Limits Staff
Volume vm Number 3
City Limits is published ten times per year, monthly
except double issues in June/July and
August/September, by the City Limits Community
Infurmation Service, Inc., a nonprofit organization
devoted to disseminating inrormation concerning
neighborhood revicaliz.atioo. The publication is spon-
sored by three organizations. The sponors are:
Assocumon of Neighborlwod Housing Developers,
Inc., an association of Oller two dozen community-
based, nonprofit housing de\-elopment groups,
developing and advocating programs for low and
moderate income housing and neighborhood
stabilization.
Pratt Institute Center for COmmJUlity and Environ-
mental a technical assistance and ad-
vocacy office offering professional planning and ar-
chitectural services to low and moderate income
community groups. The Center also analyzes and
monitors gOliernment policy and performance.
Urban Homesteading AssistlUlCe Board, a technical
assistance organization providing assistance to low
income tenant cooperatives in management and sweat
equity rehabilitation.
City Limits welcomes comments and article contribu-
tions. Please include a stamped, self-addressed
envelope for return of manuscriplS. Material in City
Limits does not necessarily reftect the opinion of the
sponsoring organizations. Send correspondence to:
CITY UMITS, 424 West 33n1 Street, New York,
N.Y. 10001. Fl:lstmaster send change of address to:
City Limits, 424 W. 33n1 St., New )brk, N.Y. 10001.
Seconddass postage paid
New York, N.Y. 10001
City Limits (ISSN 0199-0330)
(212) 239-8440
Editor. .. . .... .. .. ... . . ..... ... 1Om Robbins
Assistant Editor ............ . .... TIm Ledwith
Assistant Editor .. ....... . . .. Susan Baldwin
Mar1ceting Director .... .. . .. .. . .. Jim Mendell
Design and Layout. . .. . . . .. . .... Louis Fulgoni
Copyright 1983. All Rights Reserved.
No portion or portions of this journal may be
reprinted without express permission of the
publishers.
Cover Photographs
by Jim MendeD
The Right Artists Housing Decision
We applaud the City Council President. the Comptroller and the
Borough Presidents of Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx and Brooklyn for
casting their votes against the Mayor's Artists' Home Ownership Pro-
gram_ We hope they will continue to exercise this measure of indepen-
dent judgement on issues coming before the Board of Estimate, in-
cluding the approaching city and Community Development budgets.
The Real Homeless Solution
It is often the case that government agencies can get d'istracted by
special labels for segments of New York City's low income population.
Under court order, New York City has devoted tens of millions of dollars
to sheltering the homeless. Private groups have added millions more in
time and money. But temporary shelters, while absolutely necessary, are
only a temporary measure.
We must once again remember that the basic need of the
homeless, like all low income residents, is affordable permanent
housing-not temporary shelters. Even a small portion of the $39 million-
plus spent by the city on temporary shelters could preserve or create
and subsidize thousands of affordable homes be they large apartments,
small apartments, or much needed SROs. Only when this need is met,
can the special social and employment services for the homeless be
effective.
So, too, with artists. The basic need of any low income artist is
affordable housing. The Board of Estimate judiciously defeated the Ar-
tists Home Ownership Program February 10 because, after spending
$2.4 million of public money, the housing created would still not be affor-
dable. The program was further flawed in attempting to convert individual
housing stock to light manufacturinglindustrial use-artists' work
space-while still meeting very costly residential standards. Artists, like
the homeless and the unlabeled remainder of low income New Yorkers,
can best be served by the creation of affordable housing. Tjw10 -and-a-
half-million dollars could dramatically improve living conditions in from
3,000 to 5,000 apartments in City-owned buildings. The special need for
artists' work space can then be fulfilled by a vast inventory of unused
commercial, industrial, and institutional space. Never will public subsidy
be able to afford the expense of the artist's loft (living-working) life style.
During this season of budget setting and cutting, while labels may
distract us, let them not deflect us from our goal. D
Cover photos of Anne Devenney (inset); group picture,
tenant leaders of Northwest Bronx Community and
Clergy Coalition, left to right: Elizabeth Roman, Essie
Reese, Gina Ketter, Anne Devenney, Mary Bowman,
Joyce Ketter, Lisa Lindsay, Juana Lopez, America
Garcia, Junior Soto, Anna Cruz, Anna Soto.
3 CITY LIMITS/March 1983
A Citizens
Budget
Alternative
I
N MID-JANUARY, MAYOR ED
Koch introduced his fiscal 1984
budget. His latest financial plan was, he
said, "a tough program, a painful pro-
gram. .. in many ways .. . unaccept-
able . . . " The problem was familiar:
revenue shortfalls and sharp decreases in
both Federal and state aid pointed toward
a widening budget gap. Faced with the
choice of reducing expenditures or in-
creasing revenues - raising taxes
the Mayor saw his options and picked
them.
Higher taxes, goes the logic that the
Mayor endorses, means forcing business
out of the city, which means fewer jobs,
less revenue and even bigger budget
crunches ahead. There is little to debate,
therefore, exceptly precisely where the
cuts should go.
The parameters of this budget debate,
which has been ongoing in New York City
for almost a decade, and on a state and
Federal scale fOf several recent years, are
almost always set by those politicians,
economists and bureacurats who make
budgets their business and concern. There
has been little access to the discussion for
those citizens whose lives and work are in-
timately bound up with the shape and
dimensions of that budget.
This year, however, because of a well
researched and planned program
spearheaded by City Council member
Ruth Messinger and attorney Frank
Domurad of NYPIRG, a new coalition of
organizations and individuals in New
York's community, religious, labor and
social welfare spheres, called The City
Project, has produced an opportunity for
the yearly budget debate to take place on
a more informed level than ever before.
The contentions which lie behind the
Mayor's budget - not merely the figures
thems,elves - this new coalition suggests,
are open to dispute.
CITY LIMITS/March 1983
As the counterpoint to the Mayor's
budget (which has been dubbed the Pro-
gram to Eliminate the Gap since his elec-
tion) the City Project introduced its
Citizen's Program to Eliminate the Gap
- C-PEG - at a press conference in
early February as a working document
presenting viable budget alternatives. The
emphasis in the proposal is on the choices
available to the city. The C-PEG plan
begins at the same starting point as the
Mayor. It agrees that there is a very real
'budget gap caused by a stagnating
economy and decreases in Federal and
4
state assistance; it also posits, as does the
Mayor's Program, that any new taxes
must be balanced and fair, minimizing
the impact on the economy and limited to
areas that have grown despite the reces-
sion. Unlike the Mayor, C-PEG found
$1.2 billion in possible added revenue that
the city could earn in fiscal 1984. Briefly,
this is how they did it.
Services Cuts and the Business Climate
Whereas new or increased taxes are
almost uniformly accepted as bad for
business - and thereby dangerous to the
city as a whole - C-PEG suggests a hard
look at the converse of that proposition:
the ominous impact on private business
by a general decline in vital services,such
as transportation, police, fire, sanitation,
health, education and housing. It cites the
cautionary words of the Financial Con-
trol Board, the new commissioner for
economic development,Kenneth Lipper
and one major employer, Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich (which quit the city while
citing "a reliable and safe transportation
system" as New York's most crucial
need),all to the effect that the cumulative
effective of budget cutting can be to
undermine that very business confidence
it is intended to assure. Lipper points out
that the ser'vice industries now
dominating the private sector place "a
premium on highly skilled people. The
real question is if the school system can
keep up with the demand." He adds that
"when police protection goes down or the
~ number of potholes goes up, that's when
::;
9 we ' have a dramatic effect on the
g economic base. We've got to be careful
o
W not to make such damaging cuts to essen-
tial services."
But though both see the same dangers,
C-PEG and Lipper, etc. draw starkly
distinct conclusions. "The business
climate benefits at least as much from
safe streets, good schools, efficient mass
transit and a skilled labor force as it does
from an ever growing list of corporate tax
abatements, exemptions, incentives and
other subsidies," states the program.
Foregone Federal Revenue:
A Oty Opportunity
The massive changes in Federal, state
and city taxation - designed to stimulate
investment - has not led to prosperity,
but instead have accompanied a stagger-
ing economy "that threatens to bring
down government fmances in its wake."
C-PEG points out, however, that the tax
changes have invested corporations and
the well-to-do with substantial amounts
of disposable income. Since President
Reagan has lately encouraged states and
localities to finance spending measures
from revenue areas the Federal govern-
ment has abandoned, C-PEG suggests
that "the Mayor take him at his word."
This " enhanced tax j ustice" would " tap
the fiscal resources which recent Federal
and state tax policies have built up."
Growth Industries
Where are the areas of growth in the
city's economy that could shoulder a
heavier tax burden? C-PEG points to
four trends over the past decade of flSCal
crisis: (1) the transformation from a
manufacturing to a service economy;
(2) internationalization of the economy;
(3) a preponderance of commuter-orient-
ed jobs; and (4) an increase in non-labor
income. Each of these developments
(which are not without their own disloca-
tion on the city and its people) represent
potential untapped tax revenue for the
city.
Blossoming corporate services may call
for an expansion of the existing sales tax
. base to include professional and business
services; corporate franchise and fman-
cial corporation taxes may have to be
revamped to prevent New York City-
generated income from being shifted out
of the state or out of the country to
foreign subsidiaries; a tax on the growing
number of high income commuters may
be called for; and more unearned income
- dividends, interest and trading -
could encourage the recapture of Federal
and state taxes that have been foregone.
"In short, economic events," says
C-PEG, "may have left New York' s anti-
quated tax system limping far behind."
Finally, there are businesses that have
done exceedingly well in recent years and
could be called on for other -taxes. The
Financial, Insurance and Real Estate sec-
tor has continued to grow, despite a most
recent slackening of the pace. Commer-
cial bank earnings have risen and rentals
of Manhattan office space, though also
recently slowed, showed boom-town pro-
fits over the past few years. It is
reasonable, suggests C-PEG, to expect
these industries "to act as part of a bridge
to carry the budget over to better times."
An Ongoing Debate
C-PEG intends to pursue a number of
activities between now and budget cutting
time in June. Other reports will be issued,
including a revised proposal in April. The
City Project, as sponsor, will be soliciting
additional members and support as well
as providing groups with the materials
they need to participate in the budget pro-
cess. "Our goal," the City Project says,
"is to have more of the affected organiza-
tions and constituencies enter the fiscal .
debate - earlier and with more informa-
tion than ever before - to help them in-
fluence what has been ' a closed debate
among a few powerful players." 0 T.R.
HOW TO CLOSE THE GAP
These are some of the Proposals of the
Citizen Program to Eliminate the Gap:
The ten percent capital gains tax on
industrial and commercial real estate
transactions of a million dollars or
more, dumped by the Mayor last year,
is being reproposed. C-PEG would ex-
pand the tax to cover more kinds of
properties as well as to cover separate
sales of land or buildings. Added
Revenue: $20 mil/ion.
Sale of the World Trade Center to a
private owner is urged. In the interim,
a tripling of the payments in lieu of
taxes made by WTC-owner Port
Authority to New York City from $8
million to $24 million per year. Added
revenue: $16 mil/ion.
Also proposed are reforms and
restrictions on awarding of J-51 tax ex-
emptions, barring its use by private
developers of property valued at a level
of $30,000 per unit or above; an im-
mediate elimination of all 421a tax
subsidies to builders of new multiple
dweUiDp (all of which are luxury
apartments); barring the awarding of
Industrial and Comrnerical Incentive
Board tax exemptions to businesses
locating in Manhattan south of 96th
Street. Added revenue: $55 million.
A tightening of tax assessment levies
on buildings in "Class IV" that are
now paying only a fraction of their in-
creased assessment. Tax savings for
large buildings, such as Rockefeller
Center, Citicorp and Exxon, are
substantial due to a phasing-in of tax
5
hikes over five years. C-PEG would
eliminate the transitional assessments
and use the proceeds to minimize the
impact on smaller property owners.
Added Revenue: $241 mi//ion.
With the stock' market booming in
New York City, C-PEG supports
dropping the current 100 percent
rebate given to stock traders on their
transactions to 50 percent for three
years. Added Revenue: $300 mi//ion.
C-PEG would update the method
New York City currently uses to tax
multi state and multinational cor-
porations so that they would pay a fair
tai on earnings generated here as well
as close the loopholes now available
for corporations to shift profits to sub-
sidiaries in low- or non-tax localities .
Known as Unitary Apportionment,
this method would treat multi-state
and multinational corporations as
"the single, unified businesses that
they really are." Added Revenue: $300
million.
C-PEG proposes two measures to
bring a portion of growing commercial
bank profits back to the city where
much of them are earned. It would
eliminate an International Banking
Facility established in December,
1981, that permits tax free transfers of
bank assets to New York supposedly in
exchange for illusory job creation.
C-PEG would also apply Unitary Ap-
portionment to commercial banks to
assess taxable income under the Cor-
porate Franchise Tax. Added
Revenue: $45 million. 0
The Defeat of Artists Housing
A
LMOST A YEAR AND A HALF
after it was launched at a crowded
City Hall press conference, a Mayoral
plan to use vacant, tax-forclosed
tenements and Federal Community
Development funds to create artists' liv-
ing and working cooperatives on the
Lower East Side went down to defeat
before the Board of Estimate in
February. In an 8-3 vote that left political
analysts across the city clucking, every
board member, save the Borough Presi-
dent of Staten Island,deserted the Mayor
at the close of nearly five hours of
testimony that saw black, Hispanic and
white Lower East Side residents bearing
hand-written labels that said "No Con-
dos" mix with the luminaries of the city's
art and culture world who came to speak
for the project, and against it.
The artists' housing proposal was the
second initiative hatched by the city hous-
ing department's Office of Special Pro-
~ - - - - -
- -
-. -:-._-.
jects that is headed by Janet Langsam.
Her office's "Shopsteading" program
for vacant city-owned buildings with
commercial shopfronts in Brooklyn's
Park Slope is still struggling towards its
ftrst accomplishment. The Special Pro-
jects office was created in 1980 with
Langsam's appointment and was charged
with innovative uses of city-owned pro-
perty. Although housing for the
homeless, the disabled, students and im-
migrants were also listed as concerns of
the office, artist housing received a special
attention at the outset from Langsam
who had formerly worked at the city's of-
fice of cultural affairs.
From the start, however, the artists'
housing scheme caught the intense
criticism of many residents, the interest
and concern of New York's artist com-
munity and the attention of the media. It
caused the most concern, however,
among Lower East Side residents who
- . ~ .. - . - ~ . ; ~ - : - = .
6
saw the co-op proposal as the most
dangerous of several city threats to use its
substantial property holdings to bring
about major economic and social changes
in the community that would dislocate the
poor and the near-poor as ' surely as it
would lure higher-income dwellers to the
area. Visions of the Soho-ization of the
Lower East Side prompted an exhaustive,
year-long organizing drive headed by the
Joint Planning Council, a coalition of
local groups and Artists for Social
Responsibility, a group opposed to the
project. The threat implied in the scheme
also made investigations into ways to
preserve the Lower East Side for the low
and moderate income folk who have
always lived there more urgent.
Bitter Confrontation
After a joint response to the city's re-
quesi for proposals for artists' housing
that would have mixed low income family
units with artists space was rejected by
the housing department, the opponents
began a long-term organizing and
outreach campaign. The groups
documented the ongoing - and un-
government-assisted- changes in Lower
East Side buildings whose rents and
populations were being transformed by
real estate speculation and profiteering.
By researching rents in these rapidly
changing buildings and recording in-
dividual stories of displacement, the
group sought to construct a convincing
argument for the four public hearings
through which the proposal had to pass.
Although rejected by a subcommittee of
the local community board in October,
1982, 'the bitterest confrontation over the
plan took place at the full board meeting
of Community Board 3. There, a well-
organized group of the pro-co-op artists
participating in the project traded taunts
with opponents. Backed by the white,
mostly Jewish, middle income co-op
residents living along Grand Street, the
plan was passed. The City Planning Com-
mission, several weeks later, also approv-
ed the project, although the
Commission's two black members, R.
Susan Motley and Max Bond, dissented
on the grounds that the plan was
discriminatory and represented a misuse
of scarce Federal low income funds.
As the date for the February Board of
Estimate meeting approached, opponents
lobbied members in three separate con-
tingents: an artists' group, a community
group and a mixed representation. They
also fanned out across the city and made
effective last-minute use of the Com-
munity Development budget hearings be-
ing held in each borough at the time.
Borough President aides expressed shock
at hearing testimony from residents many
miles and boroughs away denouncing the
artists' housing scheme.
By and large, the opponents managed
to convince the staff of the Board of
Estimate members that the plan was fatal-
ly flawed in several respects. It remained
for the members themselves to be con-
vinced. On the week of the meeting, the
clear position of Manhattan Borough
President Andy Stein opposing the pro-
ject helped give other Borough Presidents
the out they would need if they wanted it.
Since the defeat, the Mayor's failure to
capture the gubernatorial primary last fall
has been cited as setting the stage for the
rejection of artists' housing. But the
traditional horsetrading of the Board of
Estimate apparently failed to produce a
single Mayoral offer powerful enough to
win votes. The impromptu arrival of New
York City'S unofficial cultural leader , Joe
Papp, who was disturbed enough to come
down to testify against the project, may
have sealed some wavering votes.
When the Mayor's concession an-
nouncement was read, he pledged to
resurrect the hope of the artist housing
program - the next time for Staten
Island, the Mayor's lone ally, whose
Borough President would show the ap-
propriate appreciation.D T.R.
The Chel'sea Clam House Defeat
T
HE CHELSEA COALITION ON
housing, which has been battling the
displacement of low income tenants from
that Manhattan West Side neighborhood
for 13 years, scored a victory in an unlike-
ly arena at the Board of Estimate on
February 10th. The Board voted
unanimously to deny the renewal of a per-
mit allowing a sidewalk cafe for Moran's
Chelsea Fish House, a Tenth Avenue
restaurant near 19th Street.
The demand for the denial of that per-
mit was first raised by the Coalition
before the local community board last fall
when it cited the harassment tactics
restaurant owner Thomas Lydon had us-
ed against tenants in several Chelsea
buildings he owned or managed.
The Coalition cited a long string of
strong-arm tactics used by Lydon, a
former police lieutenant, to empty his
buildings of low income residents. The
group argued, first before the community
board's Committee on Traffic and Com-
munications, and later before the City
Planning Commission and the Board of
Estimate that allowing Lydon's clam
house a sidewalk permit was a communi-
ty privilege that should not be extended.
The group became aware that the
sidewalk permit was up for renewal when
a legal notice was published in a local
paper. Attorney Robert Martin who
represented some tenants in buildings
owned by Lydon said that they
represented "the most well-documented
cases of landlord harassment and
withholdiIig of services we have seen in this
community in a long time." The commit-
tee voted five to three to deny the permit
renewal, followed by a full vote of Com-
munity Board Four of 13 to 9 against the
permission.
The group's arguments were rejected at
the City Planning Commission in
December, however, where the vote was
unarumous to continue the permit for five
years.
"We were very skeptical of getting this
through," said Randy Petsche of the
Coalition's Executive Committee. The
group was especially dubious of per-
7
suading the Board of Estimate of a
linkage between the harassment in the
buildings and the sidewalk permit.
However, when the Mayor's Office of
SRO Housing moved to bar building per-
mits for two Lydon-controlled buildings
that were former SROs, the possibility of
a board rejection increased. Laid over
from January to February, the Mayor's
office, at the last minute, urged its rejec-
tion.
The challenge was "an unusual move
for a housing group maybe," said
Petsche, "but it's got plenty of precedent
elsewhere as a tactic. It's not unlike
labor's secondary boycott." Some trade
unions, faced with unwilling employers,
have sought consumer boycotts of pro-
ducts in order to increase pressure to
negotiate. The tactic has been effective
enough to warrant both Federal and state
legal limitations on its use. The Fish
House, which shifted from a local eatery
and tavern to a more expensive clientelle a
couple of years ago, has sixty days to
remove the glass-enclosed cafe. D T.R.
New Tactics
L
AST MONTH, A NUMBER OF
new tactics were added to the owners'
campaign to oust the remainfng thirty
tenants of the vast Midwood Gardens com-
plex in Borough Park, Brooklyn. The
tenants are spread over six of the 11 four-
story walk-ups and are seeking consolida-
tion into a single building and the appoint-
ment of a 7-A administrator. During
February they continued to endure what
have . become usual week-long spans
withoufheat or hot water. Also, fires struck
two of the buildings where tenants are still
living, adding to the 44 suspicious fires that
have occurred in the complex in the last
three years. Like those blazes, the two
newest fires were labelled incendiary. .
The owners, however, instead of sending
up steam on the coldest days of the month,
sent messengers to each tenant with copies
of a show cause order and a civil suit that
seeks over $500,000 in damages and
possession of the property. They also suc-
cessfully sO\lght a vacate order for one of
the occupied buildings, 5110 19th Avenue.
Though severely undertenanted, with just
seven of 74 units occupied, the building has
more tenants than two others, one of which
has a single hold-out. 5110 19th Avenue is,
however, the home of Sofia Benitez and
some of the other tenants who have made
up the backbone of the tenants' association.
Tenants' attorney Steve Dobkin has sought
a stay of order.
The remaining residents are all that stand
in the way of the huge rehabilitation scheme
planned by owner Lawrence and his
partners to convert the 700 units
into condominiums.

According to Mortimer Matz, a spokes-
man for the owners, the object of the suit
is to get an accou.nting of funds collected
by the tenants' association during a rent
strike at the complex and to gain control
of the premises. Rezak purchased the
buildings in 1979 and violations grew from
under thirty to over 500 in a one-year
period. "The original object was to do an
'in-place rehab;" said Matz,who represents
the Rent Stabilization Association and other
landlord clients as a publicist, "but it didn't
work out."
As reported last month in City Limits
("The Sacking of Midwood Gardens,"
February, 1983), Rezak is an owner with
large Brooklyn holdings and has done
8
several city-assisted renovations on other
buildings. He has received over $1 million
in low-interest loans and stands to get
almost $9 million more through pending
projects.
CAB Representative Was Partner
During the two years Midwood Gardens
was being emptied Rezak's co-venturer in
the development was H. Dale Hemmer-
dinger, the president of Atco Properties and
Management and an owner representative
to the Conciliation and Appeals Board.
Hemmerdinger, who was appointed by
Mayor Koch to the CAB in 1979 and was
reconfirmed by the City Council last
month, formed ajoint venture with Rezak
in December, 1980,called Atco-Midwood

Although Hemmerdinger apparently
sold his interest in Midwood Gardens
late last fall, records indicate that Rezak
may have found both a new partner as
well as new rehabilitation fmancing for
his plans to convert the project into large
family co-ops or condos. The NYC Hous-
ing Development Corporation has made
a mortgage on the property to Henry
Roth, a developer representing Neigh-
borhood Stabilization Associates I. Roth
was recently barred by the city from
completing a second phase of a Section
8 gut rehab in Sunset Park after be was
found guilty of harassment by the
Bureau of Rent Control in several
buildings he owned in Manhattan
(Harassment Fines for 42nd St. Owners,
February, 1983).
Fire Marshal s' Investigation
At hearings before Judge Gerald Bank in
Brooklyn Housing Court, where tenants
have been attemptmg to get enforcement of
an order made last fall to provide heat, hot
water and locked entrances, Fire Marshal
Steve Piercynski testified on February 2nd
that the series of fires and harassment com-
plaints were being examined by the Bureau
of Fire Investigation. Piercynski said that
his investigation could take several months.
.,
.
"It is since the fire marshal testified that
we got this legal suit and his vacate order
placed," said Benitez. "We think they are
making their final move to get us out."
Interior demolition is already underway
on four of five buildings in the complex that
have been vacated totally. Workmen at the
site said they were told they will be in the
remainder of the buildings soon. The
January issue of The Community Ad-
vocate, published by the Southern Brooklyn
Community Organization, promised
"something very special" as an announce-
ment in its next issue about the plans for
the complex. SBCO director Rabbi Shmuel
Lefkowitz said that his organization has no
official connection to the project but has
served informally to assist relocation. The
owner has done the relocation of tenants
"in an ethical , moral and legal manner," said
Rabbi Lefkowitz.O T.R.
The CAB Gets a Tenant Activist
T
HE FIRST AVOWEDLY PRO-
tenant activist has been conflrmed to
serve on the Conciliation and Appeals
Board, the enforcement arm for the
900,000 New York City tenants whose
apartments are covered by the Rent
Stabilization Law. The appointment of
Emily Margolis, secretary of the New
York State Tenant and Neighborhood
Coalition and a former president of the
Park West Village Tenants Association in
Manhattan was approved by the City
Council in February.
Margolis' appointment by Mayor
Koch last summer broke a tradition of
fllling CAB posts with .members not
vocally active on behalf of either
landlords or tenants. The naming of
Margolis to the board, as well as the ap-
pointment of a new landlord represen-
tative, raised anew the controversy about
who should be deciding landlord-tenant
disputes before the perpetually swamped
CAB.
The board is composed of nine
members, four of whom are appointed to
represent landlords, four to represent
tenants and an "impartial" chairman. It
is charged with deliberating and deciding
on the thousands of protests med each
month over such issues as rent over-
charges, subletting and eviction.
Conflrmed along with Margolis was
another new member, Victor Marrero,
who will represent landlords . Seven
members whose terms had expired were
also conflrmed. At hearings before the
Council's Rules Committee on February
7th, Margolis was uniformly described as
an excellent tenant member for the CAB,
while the credentials of most other
members were called into question
because of their non alliance with either
tenant or landlord groups.
Marrero, who served as New York
~
Emily Margolis. new C4B tenant representative.
State Housing Commissioner as well as a
federal h(;>using official, is currently a
member of the politically powerful law
flrm of Tufo, Johnson and Zuccotti that
has represented many real estate
developers in the city. Most recently, it
represented the developers of the Lincoln
West complex and Marrero has been serv-
ing as the attorney for Gulf and Western
Corporation which is amassing land in
the Clinton area of Manhattan in
preparation for the construction of an of-
fice building. Gulf and Western is involv-
ed with a number of tenant disputes in
buildings it owns on West 48th Street.
Unendorsed Representatives
Despite that role, Marrero, along with
three other owner representatives, H.
Dale Hemmerdinger, Paul Victor and
Frank Barrera, were termed poor ad-
vocates for landlords by a number of
owner groups testifying before the Coun-
cil committee. Neither Hemmerdinger
nor Victor were present for the hearings.
Tenant representatives Robert Weaver,
Jacob Ward, and Lawrence McGaughey
9
were similarly challenged by b o ~ Council
members and tenants who testified.
Weaver served as HUD Secretary under
President Johnson and as a housing of-
ficial in the administration of Mayor
Robert Wagner. Ward is an attorney who
chaired the Temporary State Commission
on Rental Housing for Governor Carey.
McGaughey is also a lawyer representing
many community organizations.
The sharpest questioning came from
Council member Arthur Katzman,
Democrat from Forest Hills, Queens,
who queried members as to whether they
carried the endorsement of any organized
~ tenant groups. None did, although in-
~ dividual speakers spoke in favor of them.
Z Margolis and Marrero were nominated
to take over, respectively, the seats of te-
nant member Marc Goodman and owner
member Allan Stillman, both of whom
were revealed to be living outside the city
in violation of city law. [See "The Out-of-
Towners," November, 1981]. A third ap-
pointee, Frank Barrera,moved back to the
city.
Running almost as an undercurrent
beneath the hearings on the appointments
was the issue of funding for the board
which is dependent on dues collected
from ~ e landlord members of the Rent
Stabilization Association. Both members
and speakers described the board as
chronically underfunded' and understaff-
ed. Although board chairman Emanuel
Popolizio told the hearing that the board
had made significant progress in clearing
out an immense backlog of complaints,
tenant speakers described an atmosphere
of muted hostility and rushed decisions at
the board. Both members and speakers
voiced support for a changed funding
system that would collect a set amount
from owners and allocate it directly to
complaint resolution.O T.R.
New State Housing Chief:
No Grants Decision Yet
N
EW YORK STATE'S NEW
housing commissioner, Yvonne
Scruggs-Leftwich, told a group of New
York City community organizations in
February that she had yet to make up her
mind regarding an administrative posi-
tion on eliminating the cap on state grants
to community housing groups.
At an introductory meeting between
Scruggs-Leftwich and member groups of
the Association of Neighborhood Hous-
ing Developers, the issue of continued
state funding for groups who reach the
$300,000 limit on state Neighborhood
Preservation Program grants was return-
ed to in repeated questions. The Commis-
sioner told the groups that the
Neighborhood Preservation Program
had been spared the budget axe thus far
and would be refunded at the same level
as last year. The agency's Urban In-
itiatives Program, a demonstration pro-
ject to assist economic development,pas
been cut in half to $1 million. The
4SO-person agency will lose 34 positions,
she said.
In reponse to questions about raising
the funding gap, Scruggs-Leftwich stated
that hers and the agency's final position
The Commissioner also told the groups
of new appointments that have been
made within the agency. Sharon Lauer
has become Deputy Commissioner, she
said, and two new Assistant Commis-
sioner positions have been named. Nancy
Travers, formerly with the city's Office of
Property Management, will be Assistant
Commissioner for Urban Development.
John Oster, who headed the Rural Hous-
ing Coalition, has been named Assistant
Commissioner for Rural Development. A
third post, to head up the agency's
revitalization efforts, has yet to be filled.
The appointments have yet to be confum-
ed.O 1:R.
_ were yet to be arrived at. Thus far, thir-
teen groups have reached the limit on the
amount they can receive. Many of these
groups are acknowledged to be some of
the best performers in the program which
holds some 200 contracts with local
organizations.
New Staff for Association
Michael Weiss, the chairperson of the
Flatbush Development Corporation,
which was the first state organization to
arrive at the cap, suggested that the self-
sufficiency the state expected groups to
achieve "could come at the expense of
our principles."
Scruggs-Leftwich cautioned the
groups, however, that "what we come
up with in' an administrative position on
the cap may not be what you as
neighborhood groups think is best. We
may come down on a formal position dif-
ferent from yours."
CITYLIMITS/March 1983
The Association of Neighborhood
Housing Developers announced several
new staff appointments in February.
Susan Reynolds has been appointed
Associate Director of the Association to
head up the organization's program staff
and pursue legislative initiatives and city
housing issues. Previously, Reynolds was
the policy analyst for the Task Force on
City-Owned Property, an Association
project.
Charles Jones has joined the Associa-
tion as a Policy and Budget Analyst,
following a year of work at the New York
Public Interest Research Group. Jones
will focus on funding issues including the
use of Federal Community Development
Block Grants and the Association's
Homesteading Project. Previously, he
10
worked as a researcher for the New York
State Investigation Commission a,nd for
CBS-TV where he helped research a
documentary on redlining in Harlem.
Also, Margaret Stix has been hired to
edit and publish the Association's
"Weekly Reader." Stix was a founder of
the HEAT fuel cooperative and is a free
lance consultant on funding for non-pro-
fit groups. In addition, Jean Miller is the
Association's new Administrative Assis-
tant.
Toby Sanchez, who sefved as Director
of Technical Assistance, has left the
Association and is now the Executive
Director of Junction College Develop-
ment Corporation in Flatbush,
Brooklyn. 0
Seek Agreement On East Side Elderly Project
A
LOWER EAST SIDE COMMUN-
ity organization is seeking
guarantees from the sponsor of a
federally-assisted senior citizen housing
project that local elderly residents will
receive priority in tenanting the new
apartments. The demand has raised a
storm of protest from the sponsor,
Jewish Association for Services for the
Aged, which has insisted that it intends to
equitably market the Section 8 apart-
ments to all those local people who
qualify.
The Cooper Square Community
Development Committee,which has long
served as watchdog in the urban renewal
area where the ISO-unit housing project is
to be built, has pointed to both the high
number of minority elderly in the
neighborhood living in substandard
housing and the low number of
minorities living in other JASA senior
citizen housing. In four other similar
JASA projects,the group learned through
Federal data that only 48 of 1,006 elderly
units house minorities. The group seeks a
signed commitment from JASA that 49
percent of the apartments to be built on
the Bowery between East Fourth and
Fifth Streets will be set aside. Without
that commitment it has vowed to oppose
the project at Board of Estimate in
March.
"We're not trying to be spoilers, but we
can't understand why a legitimate
organization would be so opposed to this
written agreement," said Valerio Orsell,
Cooper Square's director. "Quite frank-
ly, if JASA's track record were accep-
table across the city, the burden of proof
would be on us to show why we want this,
but their record speaks for itself," he
added.
JASA has rejected both the agreement
and the criticism. "HUD designated us
for this site because we have a very good
track record in this kind of housing, ,; said
Mimi Koren, JASA's director of public
information. She also stated that Cooper
Square had been invited to serve on an ad-
visory committee but had declined.
Community outreach letters for poten-
tial qualifying tenants have gont; out to
more than 130 local organizations, said
Koren. Cooper Square's request for fun-
ding for a person to handle the outreach
was an attempt by the group to 'share in
the sponsorship" and that at least "20
other groups have as much right."
In January, the Cooper Square Com-
mittee wrote to the Board of Estimate
asking it to make JASA enter a written
agreement on the rent-up of the units.
The letter stated that JASA has refused
"to allow community participation in the
outreach and tenant selection process in
any meaningful way ... and established
an advisory committee almost totally
concerned with white constituencies, ig-
noring local minority and other organiza-
tions with real stakes in the project. "
According to assistant housing com-
missioner Manuel Mirabal, the city's
housing department has already gone to
HUD asking that its regular guidelines
calling for a citywide lottery for tenant
selection be waived and that the 49 per-
cent priority for the local residents be
observed. He also said that he hoped to
bring the two groups together to reach an
equitable understanding before the
March 3rd meeting.O S.B.
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CITY LiMITS/March 1983
NElOBBOBBOOD BOUSINO SERVICES ABBIVES
Banldng lb. Uabaakable ByTomRobblm
John Mangin, a 78-year-old West Brighton resident, in front of his home on Barker Street.
O
NE BY ONE OVER THE PAST
fall, six new housing assistance of-
fices celebrated their openings in some of
New York City's farthest flung neigh-
borhoods. In a renovated shop on ailing
Merrick Boulevard in Laurelton, Queens;
nestled next to a confectionary shop on
Castleton Avenue in the West Brighton
section of so-often forgotten Staten
Island; in a bunker-like converted office
donated by an adjoining construction
supply company in Brooklyn's East Flat-
bush; in Williamsbridge and Soundview
, in the Bronx, and in Kensington! Wind-
sor Terrace in Brooklyn, local,
autonomous, outposts of the nationally-
networked Neighborhood Housing Ser-
vices quietly opened their doors and in-
vited in the public.
Those openings came as the first
milestone in over three years of develop-
ment work to firmly establish Neigh-
borhood Housing Services in New York.
Although a 1978 NBS office in Jamaica,
Queens, preceeded them, that operation
lacked the pre planning and attention
given the six new organizations. If the
Neighborhood Housing strategy, which is
at work in cities across the country, is to
succeed in New York, its testing is now
underway.
That test is not taking place in the cru-
cible of the city's worst housing. The
small homeowner communities where the
program is targeted are needy, but not
desperate. The test is of the strength and
commitment both community and lend-
ers bring to a program predicated on their
joint participation.
Each of the NHS offices is armed with
a staff of three to provide fmancial and
rehabilitation know-how to owners of
one-to-four family homes. At their dis-
posal is a limited pot of low-interest loan
dollars to make loans to those families
most lenders would automatically reject.
That staff is backed by a local board of
between 15 and 20 persons, made up of
12
residents, lenders and city officials. The
board is charged with deciding where,
how, and to whom those loans go as well
as outlining neighborhood strategies and
selecting personnel. Behind them lies a
central board of the citywide NHS.
There, two residential representatives
from each local board predominate over
ten other members drawn from city and
state agencies, banking, insurance, foun-
dation and technical assistance organiza-
tions.
The parent body, which planted the
seeds from which New York City
Neighborhood Housing Services has
grown, is the Neighborhood Reinvest-
ment Corporation which is directed by
the heads of the federal regulatory agen-
cies of the lending industry. Chartered
and funded by Congress, the Reinvest-
ment Corporation provides many of the
tools, the national coordination and some
of the funds that make 171 NHS boards
in 126 cities work. The Reinvestment Cor-
poration is the only housing program that
has been consistently recommended for
funding increases by the Reagan Admin-
istration. Last year,it received nearly $13
million from Congress.
It is not hard to tell what has made
NHS/NRC so popular. Its vision of "im-
proving the quality of life in older neigh-
borhoods" is based on creating local
public-private partnerships where "resi-
dents, business and fmancialleaders, and
local government officials ... make a
commitment to each other ... " In places
like Baltimore, Chicago and Rochester,
that partnership has achieved notable
successes.
Bringing in the Neighborhoods
New York City's NHS was launched
around the same time that Congress was
bestowing its approval on the Reinvest-
ment Corporation. It was also a time of
substantial rancor between community
anti-redlining activists and the lending in-
dustry. Anita Miller, a former chairman
of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board
and currently director of the South Bronx
office of the Local Initiatives Support
Corporation, sits on the NHS central
board. She recalls that at the time Ernst
Sprague, the head of the FDIC, had just
rejected the flrst application for a branch
by a local savings bank based on a chal-
lenge under the Community Reinvest-
ment Act. "He didn't want to have to do
more of that. It wasn't terribly construc-
tive. So it was with a great deal of support
that the effort to broaden the program in
New York came about." The Reinvest-
ment Corporation began exploring with
the city what its contribution could be
and where NHS should be targeted.
The city was interested but also had its
own criteria to match those of the
Reinvestment Corporation. It wanted to
target neighborhoods not reached by
federal Community Development funded
housing programs, such as Section 312
rehabilitation loans, but which also were
in danger of decline. These areas might be
adjacent to areas that were CD-eligible.
Pending approval by a larger task force
made up of representatives of both com-
munities and business, NRC accepted the
sites the city selected. Except for
numerous boundary line flne tuning,
these became the NHS areas of today.
Interestingly, several of the neighbor-
hoods were hotbeds of anti-redlining ac-
Ayn Tucker, director of Laurelton NHS, in the area her board has targeted for loans.
tivity. This raised the larger question of
whether the lenders and the community
people would be willing, or able, to work
together.
The Reinvestment Corporation kicked
off its introduction of a multiple New
York City NHS with a weekend con-
ference at Mohonk in the Catskills. In-
vited were a large selection of neigh-
borhood activists, foundation admin-
istrators, community group heads, state
and city officials and a hefty number of
lenders and insurers. Phil Gallagher, who
now serves as President of the East Flat-
bush NHS, was then co-chair of an anti-
redlining group, Bank on Brooklyn. At
the time, he recalled, "We were in the
midst of writing bank challenges. When
we heard Kay Bergen, NRC's scout, des-
cribe what NHS was about we said
'Great-that's what we've been talking
about for years: that banks should
recognize the solidity of the neigh-
13
borhood and loan to bankable people.'
"The day before we were to go to
Mohonk, Bank on Brooklyn staged a
CRA challenge against Metropolitan
[Savings Bank] at the FDIC. John
Sadleck of Metropolitan himself was
there. We had 30 people lined up to speak.
It became something of a brawl. The
FDIC said there was no time for all those
people to talk. It ended on a sour note.
We went home bitter. The next day we all
drove up to Mohonk. And right in front
of us, just going in the door, were all the
FDIC people, the state banking guys and
even Metropolitan's bankers. Out of all
this came a lot of enthusiasm for NHS
from Metropolitan."
The coalition that emerged from that
confrontation ~ e part of the East
Flatbush NHS. Dime Savings Bank,
against which Bank of Brooklyn carried
out a three-year CRA challenge,also has
an active representative on the NHS
Homes in Laurelton. Queens NHS area.
board. Another board member, Gal-
lagher's former co-chair at Bank on
Brooklyn, Jack Callaghan, now also
serves as Vice President of the NHS Cen-
tral Board.
East Flatbush is not unique. Veterans
of all three sides of the anti-redlining bat-
tles of a few short years ago are now
working together on almost all of New
York's new NHS boards. Bill Frey, a
leader of the activist Northwest Bronx
Community and Clergy Coalition, who
also helped lead the citywide Coalition
Against Redlining, has joined the NHS
central office as Assistant Director to Ex-
ecutive Director Jeff Armistead.
Certainly,it's not just the dove of peace
that NBS released that brought everyone
together. High interest rates made a
mockery of reinvestment demands in re-
cent years when few could afford to bor-
row. And, as Miller notes, governmental
regulators, faced with disciplining
recalcitrant leaders, were spurred to
bolster workable compromises. Neigh-
borhood Housing Services has clearly
benefitted.
Banking the 'Unbankable'
Can the program bear fruit? NHS clos-
ed around $100,000 ofloans by the end of
1982, although most offices were still get-
ting off the ground. Basically, each office
has two services to offer local homeown-
ers. First, it is committed to making an af-
fordable loan to almost any homeowner
who wants to repair his or her home. A
fmancial history is compiled by the staff,
using some of the same approach normal
lenders do, but trying to establish how
much "disposable income" is left at the
end of the month. If the staff determines
that the homeowner is "bankable" -
someone bankers lending in that area
would consider a good risk - they are
referred to a lender with whom the NHS
has ties, usually a bank that is either
working on the board or one of its com-
mittees.
If the homeowner can't afford a
market rate loan, or for some other
reason is "unbankable," then the NHS
can utilize its own loan pool, after review-
ing the application in its loan committee
made up of residents (with no banking or
business backgrounds) as well as industry
professionals. For each NHS in New
York, the Revolving Loan Fund is current-
ly $125,000: $75,000 of that is city-
allocated CD funds; another $50,000
comes from the Reinvestment Corpora-
tion. The city has committed itself to a
total of $2.1 million over the next three
years to replenish those pools.
Most NHS boards are anxious to
leverage these funds as much as possible,
combining them with lenders and utility
company loans.
NHS, however, does not see itself as
only a loan program. While marginal
homeowners may get the affordable loan
14
they need, they also get an evaluation of
the condition and needs of their home
from the office construction specialist.
For many owners who have bad past ex-
periences with home improvement con-
tractors, the opportunity for an unbiased
appraisal can be as important as the loan
itself. The construction specialists also
monitor rehabs once they have begun.
The NHS tries to complement this in-
dividual assistance by bringing the Cornell
Cooperative ExtensioniCitibank's Han-
divan to neighborhood meetings to
demonstrate weatherizing techniques and
repairs.

The Laurelton, Queens, NHS begins
at: just after you cross over Springfield
::c
:!; Boulevard, a few short blocks from much
~ more seriously deteriorated sections of
~ South Queens. At the beginning of the
19705, Laurelton went through abrupt
racial change. It is now largely American
blacks, West Indians and perhaps ten per-
cent Jewish.
Despite the transition, most people
here make a pretty good buck," says Ayn
Tucker, director of the local NHS office,
who started out with NHS in Dade Coun-
ty, Florida, in 1975. There are pockets of
poverty, she points out, but overall, the
area is close to the city's median income.
Many homeowning families, though, are
headed by single mothers trying to raise
their children, hold down their jobs and
still keep up their house.
The Laurelton office has made two
loans so far, both from its Revolving
Loan Fund. One of the loans, Tucker
says, was fairly typical. A divorced
woman with two children, who works for
the Board of Education as a supervisor,
went back to school to get her degree. She
had had several home improvement loans
before and each time been cheated by
contractors who failed to complete the
agreed upon repairs. The Laurelton NHS
made her a $14,000 loan at nine percent
interest to do exterior refinishing, plumb-
ing work, and to put in storm windows,
and repair termite damage.
"She's most happy about the rehab
specialist, " said Tucker. "She doesn't
have to be watching everything the con-
tractors do every minute. We find people
are looking for the technical assistance as
much as the loan." The woman's home
lies within a target area selected by the
!
board where it hopes to make loans that
will help to turn around the other homes
nearby.

Staten Island's West Brighton NHS
may be atypical of New York, but it
resembles many of the other NHS neigh-
borhoods around the . country with its
paint-faded wood frame qineteenth cen-
tury houses and permastone-covered
modem adaptations. between
Port Richmond and its stable and af-
fluent population on the west and St.
George on the ea st where private renova-
tions are commencing unassisted (and
with some resulting displacement), West
Brighton has had a hard time calling at-
tention to its own noticeable problems. Its
side streets have their share of abandon-
ment and arson, leaving tinned-up build-
ings beside occupied homes.
The area is largely black and Italian,
most of whom, West Brighton director
Beth Leo says, "have lived cheek to jowl
for years." One of the NHS's frrst loans
was to John Mangin whose
white wood frame home on Barker Street
will get a rebuilt porch, a new fence and
repaved sidewalks. Mangin moved to
West Brighton some twenty years ago
from the Staten Island community of
Sandy Ground where his family has lived
for generations.
The West Brighton has gotten l\
boost from a feisty local banker named
Arthur Loehrer, president of the Rich-
mond County Savings Bank. Loehrer,
who says he stayed dubious of NHS for a
long time until he actually saw frrsthand
in Bridgeport what it could do, worked as
a banker in Bedford Stuyvesant for thirty
years before coming to Staten Island. "I
saw what happened because of the lack of
involvement of investors and real estate
block busting," he says. He has kept his
bank headquartered down the block from
where the NHS office opened and has ac-
tively sought out other businesses' for the
neighborhood. He bristles at the sugges-
tion of redlining and insists he has
welcomed the opportunity to reinvest in
West Brighton.

West Brighton and Laurelton, like the
five other NHS neighborhoods in the city,
represent at this point just a series of
possibilities. Although the numbers may
grow quite quickly - Executive Director
Jeff Armistead believes the NHS boards
will spend all of their available loan funds
by the end of June - the ultimate mea-
surement may be taken in what hasn '(
happened rather than what has.
Altogether, the 130 members of the NHS
local boards are creating another neigh-
borhood housing movement, one that it
pays to watch closely. 0
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SBELTEB!
By Susan Baldwin
T
HE NEATLY MANICURED, TURN-OF-THE-
century row houses in the of West 139th Street
glistened in the late afternoon winter sunlight. Removed from
the hustle and bustle, the cacophony known as Harlem, they
exude an aura of well-being. Could this be a latter-day Sleepy
Hollow? Rest assured. Looks can be deceiving, especially on
this block which houses a band of self-avowed "fighters" who,
in the words of one hearty urban guerrilla, "never lose because
we never give up."
Juanita Clayton and her band of spirited men and women,
in the 300-block West 139th Street Block Association, have
taken on the task of saving two city-owned rooming houses on
their block as pemanent, affordable low income housing for
neighborhood residents.
With the aid of a modest $109,000 grant from the state's
Division of Housing and Community Renewal and the dona-
tion of the two buildings by the city's housing department, the
nonprofit group hopes to provide model, permanent, single-
room-occupancy (SRO) housing units for the 20 residents,
some of whom have lived at 305 and 307 West 139th Street
since the early 1950s.
According to several long-time tenants' accounts, life in the
rooming houses was fine until a few years ago when the essen-
tial services disappeared. The boiler broke down. There was no
heat and hot water for most of one winter. Finally, the court-
appointed, city-approved 7-A administrator appeared inter-
mittently to collect the rents and eventually absconded with the
rent roll. It was then that some of the more vocal residents,
already members of the block association, sought direct help
from the homeowners.
The story of how the took over the management
of the two tax-foreclosed rooming houses in this historic St.
Nicholas Park section of Harlem, a block away from the
elegant, celebrated Striver's Row, is a unique one.
"First of all," said Clayton, "we took the city by surprise.
After we found out they owned the buildings, we went to them
right away and said, 'let us fix these rooms up and run
them ... Let us keep our people here where they belong. We
know everybody because we're one big family and plan to stay
that way.' " Clayton serves as president of the block associa-
tion.
Seemed Ideal
"They're right when they say they surprised us," recalled
Richard Heitler, director of the Special Projects unit in the
city's alternative management housing program. "They came
to us asking for this repsonsibility. We had no existing model,
but they impressed us as being very tight, very
together-homeowners with rooming-house residents on their
[block association] board, the local minister on their side. They
Members of the 3()(J..Block 139th Street Block Associatioll all the stoop of 305 W. 139th St.
seemed ideal. We gave them a lease right away."
The group signed an II-month lease in August, 1982, with
an option to buy the two buildings and applied for the state's
special needs grant for funds to underwrite a fairly ambitious
rehabilitation plan. At the same time, they developed an
operating budget that predicted the 20-odd units and com-
munal facilities could be maintained well, keeping a small
balance in the bank account with tenants paying rents ranging
from a low of $100-a-month for single units to $225 for the
three larger apartments.
If the proposed renovation is carried out as planned, the two
buildings will receive new roofs, windows, insulation, substan-
tial plumbing replacement, new electrical wiring, new com-
munal bathrooms, kitchens, intercom systems, a common
boiler, and major replastering. The total estimated cost for the
job is $104,000. The projected acquisition price for the 20 units
at $250 each is $5,000.
"We can easily repeat this model in other parts of the city
where we have similar housing," said Judith Spektor, head of
the mayor's office on SROs. "It's a good solution to our pro-
blem because it's quite inexpensive and represents a normal
way of doing business. It's simple, and it works."
The program involves straightforward funding as the state
Mamie Ashford. lenant of 305 W. 1391h SI.
Mary Loney. lenant of 305 W. 1391h SI.
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grant and the tenants' rent allowance monies are the sole com-
ponents in the fmancial packaging.
The city currently owns about 80 rooming houses scattered
throughout the five boroughs, although the largest number are
in Harlem.
According to Spektor, the city is presently looking at some
15 additional sites to use this municipal match program and is
interviewing a half-dozen potential, nonprofit community-
based organizations to serve as sponsors.
But the program, at best, represents a modest effort to
rehouse the homeless as only $4 million has been allocated for
the entire special needs budget. And of this amount, just $2
million has been set aside for this special match between the
state and the city's Department of Housing Preservation and
Dtvelopment.
Salvaging SROs
Once a housing mainstay in New York City, the SRO is an
endangered species. In 1975, in New York city alone, there
were 298 lower-priced hotels with a total of 50,458 rooms, ac-
cording to available statistics. But, by the Spring of 1981, only
138 buildings with a total of 19,619 rooms were left. This loss
of 31 ,000 hotel units or 61 percent of the 1975 total, according
to recent findings by the nonprofit Vera Institute for Justice
has "forced thousands of persons who would probably seek
such housing-particularly single welfare recepients in New
York City with their limited incomes [the welfare housing
allowance is $ 152-a-month] or those with minimum wage jobs
into the city's shelter system or into the street."
While developers converted this housing stock to a higher
residential, i.e., luxury, category, made huge profits, and
received tax abatements for at least 12 years, these people were
simply priced out of the housing market.
Established in New York State in 1961, Vera is currently
developing model apartment-hotel housing accommodations
for low income single individuals in New York City.
Even though Governor Cuomo, in his inaugural speech,
committed his administration to rehabilitating 6,000 units of
permanent, low-cost shelter for the homeless with a suggested
$50 million in tax-exempt bonds, the particulars for carrying
out such a program have not been formulated and probably
won't be for quite some time. He did, however, appoint a task
force to study the problem in mid-February.
In the absence of the concrete state housing program for the
homeless, this one on West 139th Street and the few others
already in place become extremely important. But, unfor-
tunately, state housing officials have now warned that the
special needs funding, recently awarded to this group and two
other community organizations for a total of $710,000, might
be delayed indefinitely or possibly cancelled until the entire
state budget is reviewed.
Combining Limited Resoures
Responding to its court-ordered mandate to shelter the
homeless, New York City is budgeted to spend more than $39
million this year, up from $7 million in 1978, to provide tem-
porary lodging for a transient population that is said to
number in excess of 36,000-the figure documented over three
years ago in an in-depth study by the Community Services
17 CITY LIMITS/March 1983
Society.
Using these figures, this means that more than
$1,OOO-a-year, or $90-a-month, is spent for temporary shelter
for each homeless individual. Observers believe this scarce
money would be better spent developing permanent low-cost
housing.
But, in the absence of a program, Mayor KOCh continued to
. chide the churches, synagogues, and community boards for not
doing enough for the homeless, while religious leaders, accep-
ting some "responsibility to help out, charged that they should
not be asked to solve the problems created by
Accorcling to one long-time advocate for affordable. per-
manent housing for the homeless, "both hands have to be
clapping together-every type of housing initiative must be
used.
"We just can't take care of the problem with tourniquets
because people are bleeding, suffering," said Father Donald
Sakano, program director of Catholic Charities' Office of
Neighborhood Preservation and a member of the SRO Tenants
Rights Coalition. "The city must commit itself to something
more permanent ... It must deal with crisis around the current
inadequate shelter allowance-$152-a-month," he continued.
"This is not enough for homeless people to fmd housing. They
can't even compete for space in the city's own in rem housing
stock because it charges a lot more rent just to keep afloat."
Among many solutions, in addition to increasing the shelter
allowance, which has stayed the same since 1974, Sakano has
suggested the need for a capital grant program to cover income
maintenance for low income people.
Barring a change in the shelter allowance, two other
"model" nonprofit proposals for permanent housing .for the
homeless are currently under consideration for implementa-
tion.
The first proposal, a project of the 21-year-old Vera In-
stitute of Justice in conjunction with the state's Department of
Social Services, would convert a vacant, state-owned building
on West 22nd Street in Manhattan's Chelsea section into a
48-unit, permanent apartment hotel for adults, using "creative
[and very intricate] financing strategies which draw on the ex-
isting public and private sector resources to acquire,
rehabilitate and operate such buildings on welfare-level rents
without the need for ongoing rental or other direct subsidies. "
If this project gets off the ground, Vera hopes to duplicate it
at least three more times.
The other model involves the use of Federal Section 8
moderate rehabilitation funds, the special needs state grant,
Community Development monies, and low-interest public and
private loans to provide 300 units of SRO housing under a
special demonstration set-aside. Nine nonprofit groups have
submitted plans that, if all were funded, would provide 875
. permanent units.
"We desperately want and need that Section 8 component,
but it's our board's policy that we proceed even without it,
however we can, because of our long-time commitment to pro-
viding this housing," said Mig Boyle, a founder of the
l00-Block West 87th Street Block Association, one of the three
organizations that formed a consortium to purchase,
rehabilitate, and manage the 240-unit Capital Hall Hotel at 166
West 87th Street on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The other
CITY LIMITS/March 1983 18
nonprofit groups making up the specially incorporated Hotel
Preservation Corporation to deal with this SRO, are the Settle-
ment Housing Fund and Goddard Riverside Community
Center.
After three years of dickering over the price, they have
established a year's option to purchase the hotel for $1.9
million from its owner, Ralph Miller, who has threatened
several times to convert it to luxury housing. The corporation
has already paid Miller a non-refundable $30,000 for the first
four months of this option. After that expires, it must pay him
monthly installments of $6,250 for the remaining eight
months.

West 139th Street block association members Alberta Hill
and Mary Loney are oblivious to all the complicated financ-
ing schemes and endless theorizing that surround discussions
on the plight of the city's homeless. Residents for over 30 years
of 305 West 139th Street, they cannot today conceive of
themselves as potential members of the city's ever-increasing
homeless ranks.
"I might get worried about displacement if they tried to auc-
tion this building like they want to do with all the brownstones
in Harlem, but they won't as long as we have it," Hill said con-
fidently. "We're here to stay."
Both were embarrassed to the well maintained rooms
they call home to visitors on a recent tour of the two rooming
houses. "If I'd known you'd be coming up, I would have done
some fast cleaning," chirped' Hill, as she tidied up f9r
photographs and Loney tried to hide hair curlers from the
camera's eye.
As the enthusiastic block members illustrated renovation
plans for each floor of the two, three-story brownstones,
Juanita Clayton reiterated the block's commitment to making -
sure the work is done-done well-and the people remain.
"We already cut through all the red tape by doing all the
paper work ourselves, and we'll have no problem getting help
here because people have begun to realize that you've gotta
have a plan to stay in your housing," she said, noting that she
has lived in Harlem in various spots near her home for the last
35 years.
Clayton purchased her home at 302 West 139th Street in
1968 from a woman who ran a children's nursery. She lives
there now on two floors with her 87-year-old mother, who is
blind, and rents out the other two floors to tenants.
"That's right, about help," chimed in Willie Bryan, the
association's secretary, who bought the house at 317 five years
ago. "I've lived in New York a long time, 24 years at the last
place to be exact, but there was no feeling of community.
"Here, it's different. And it's ironic, too. While others were
plotting and scheming to get away from Harlem, I was saving
to get here. And here I am to stay. During the last jazzmobile,
Juanita's house was jammed. The word got around. People
. like coming here, and they'll be coming back." 0
FiDes for SRO Eviclers By Maria Laurino
L
ANDLORDS SAM DOMB AND
Benjamin Norych, who have emp-
tied and converted a number of former
single room occupany hotels on the Upper
West Side, were recently served with a
court order that may stop them from con-
tinuing their practices downtown. Unless
they relocate by March 15, the displaced
tenants from the Ashland Hotel, an SRO
on Park Avenue South between 29th and
30th Streets, they will be fmed $50,000 and
could face a possible jail term.
The Ashland scenario is all too familiar:
landlords buy a building and intentionally
destroy it until a vacate order is granted.
Domb and Norych, the principal owners
of the BNSD Hotel Corporation, bought
the SRO in early November,and the Build-
ings Department issued a vacate order two
weeks later declaring the hotel "structurally
unsound." Case workers from the Murray
Bill SRO Law Proj ect visited the building
and reported that "walls were being knock-
ed out" while the tenants were still in their
rooms. Scott Norych, the owner's son and
a partner in the corporation, denies that this
work was being done and says that the hotel
was in terrible condition when it was
bought. However, an August, 1982, Build-
ings Department report stated that the hotel
showed "no evidence of structural defects."
Civil Court Judge Margaret Taylor ruled
on December 28 that the owners had to
restore the building, but they refused to
comply. Nancy Biberman, a lawyer for
MFY Legal Services, filed a February 9
motion citing the owners for contempt,and
both Norych and Domb agreed in court that
day to renovate the building and reinstate
the tenants.
Bibennan represents 8 of the hotel's ap-
proximately 20 tenants. She says that she
does not know what happened to the other
residents but presumes that "a handful are
homeless." John McEvoy, an 80-year-old
tenant who lived at the Ashland for 17
years, died during the relocation process.
Diane Sonde, director of the Murray Hill
Project, which serves elderly SRO tenants,
said that McEvoy, who had been in the
hospital, was released when the renovation
work at the hotel had begun. Walls were
tom down around him and he had no hot
water. Distraught from the realization that
he would lose his home, McEvoy was re-
DemonsltTllion at Ash/alld HOl e/.
hospitalized that night and died shortly
afterward. "It just seems like his whole
world fell apart," Sonde said.
Domb and Norych are well known to ad-
vocates who work with SRO tenants on the
Upper West Side. Norych is the principal
lessee of the Pennington Hotel at 316 W.
95 Street and the Mount Royal at 315 W.
94th Street. The Mount Royal has become
a dumping ground for tenants evicted from
buildings on the Upper West Side. Domb
was a partial owner of the former 49th
Street Lodge (now Radio City Apartments).
Shortly after he bought the building in 1978,
goons began to appear, threatening tenants
and destroying parts of the hotel. Debra
Rand, director of the Goddard-Riverside
SRO Law Project, said that she had obtain-
ed a temporary restraining order to stop the
harassment, but Domb didn't take such a
threat seriously in 1978. Rand said that she
was pleased with the landlord's change in
attitude 5 years later. "I think they've learn-
ed over the years that things are getting a
lot harder for them."
While the Eastside SRO Legal Services
Project, MFY Legal Services, and the
Murray Hill SRO Law Project were in-
strumental in helping tenants fight these
landlords, some community members were
19
pleased with the vacate order. At a Com-
munity Board 5 public hearing on the
Ashland, angry residents protested the ram-
pant prostitution in the area and claimed
that the hotel was a central location for
these activities. The community residents
present at the meeting said that their area
was inundated with places for the homeless
and they favored the prospect of a lUXUry
coop replacing an SRO to up the area's real
estate value.
When the Eastside SRO Project co-
sponsored a February 10 press conference
with the Coalition for the Homeless in front
of the Ashland, some of the more irate
residents returned to protest the reopening
of the hotel. Their insistence that the
building bred prostitution cruelly dis-
regards the fact that the tenants were the
victims of gentrifiers who felt little remorse
at displacing them from their former home.
While Norych and Domb may have had
better luck with conversions on the Upper
West Side, the courts have become par-
ticularly sensitive to the great loss of SRO's
and the swelling number of homeless.
Judge Taylor's firm stance and sizable fine
may help curtail their game. 0
Maria Laurino is it research assistant for
the Village Voice.
OrganiziDg the Northwest Bronx ByTimUdwith
2656 Decatur Avenue, a NWBCCC-rehabilitated building.
Ten years ago, residents in
neighborhoods of the northwest Bronx
felt threatened by the much-heralded ur-
ban demise to their south. One resident,
now a tenant organizer, remembers a
general feeling in the economically and
ethnically diverse area of 400,000 during
that time: "There was a crisis in the
Bronx, with deterioration and abandon-
ment moving northward at the rate of ten
blocks a year." The natural response
among community members, he recalls,
was: "How do you stop it?"
Today, though serious housing prob-
lems remain in the area, many northwest
Bronx residents believe they have found
some answers to that vital question. To
do so, during the last decade, they have
finely tuned their knowledge about how
neighborhood deterioration can snowball
from lending institutions' notion that an
area is "bad." Much of that
has developed through the efforts of the
Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy
Coalition, and its largely-successful one-
two combination of confrontation tactics
and creative rehabilitation fmancing.
The Coalition formed when organiza-
tions - from Morris Heights in the south
to Crotona in the east to Kingsbridge in
the northwest - banded together in 1974.
Their purpose was to address the com-
munity-wide problems of housing and
related city services that residents had
cited as their major concerns in a series of
neighborhood meetings. Thejr message,
since stated by current Coalition Presi-
dent Anne Devenney at, dozens of public
events: "Don't move, Improve!"
At least part of the activist slant that
the group brought to its work stems from
its links to the aggressive organizing ap-
proach of the late Saul Allnsky. Two
leaders of the Coalition worked with
Chicago community groups that were
directly descended from Alinsky's 19305
organizing, and the coalition has main-
tained close connections with the Na-
tional People's Action organization in
Chicago and its arm, the National Train-
ing and Information Center.
The group's present approach to
neighborhood improvement, which is
fairly unique in New York City, took
some time to develop. "At first,"
remembers Joe Muriana, a Coalition
organizer since 1975, "we put pressure on
private landlords." But even in apart-
ment buildings run by "cooperative"
owners, Coalition members found, it was
20
futile to try and upgrade conditions unless
relatively long-term financing was
available. The group further realized that
less cooperative landlords were more like-
ly to improve building systems if mort-
gage lenders enforced the common "good
repair" clause, which requires basic
maintenance as a condition of the loan.
Eventually, Muriana says, these prob-
lems made it clear that a broader ap-
proach was needed to "challenge the in-
stitutions' perception that the area was a
risk."
:::j The new approach took shape with the
birth of a reinvestment committee, com-
posed of Coalition members from 11
neighborhoods, in 1976. That group
started a series of meetings with local len-
o ding institutions, armed with the
...
knowledge from Federal mortgage
... disclosure records that both the number
and amounts of loans in the northwest
Bronx were declining. At the meetings,
community members asked flustered
bank and insurance company represen-
tatives about their institutions' reinvest-
ment performance. Unused to the
Alinsky-style organizing tactics employed
by the Coalition, the lenders first balked
at community demands.
Getting Commitments
But by January, 1980, six major finan-
cial institutions had been pressed into
making concrete commitments. At a
Coalition meeting that month, Dollar
Savings, Northside Savings, Eastern Sav-
ings, Manufacturers Hanover Trust and
Aetna Life and Casualty all signed "Pro-
clamations of Cooperation" that said
they would fmance over 200 building im-
provement projects in the area. Shortly
afterward, Travelers Insurance commit-
ted itself to $1 million in northwest Bronx
investments.
While those agreements ended the first
round of confrontation in the reinvest-
ment issue, Coalition members found
that the work had only begun. The next
step was to package financing for
building improvements without pricing
neighborhood people out of homes
- no mean task in an era of soaring mor-
tgage interest rates.
To accomplish this, the Coalition took
an active role in helping to close loans for
both private apartment buildings and
city-owned properties. The model devised
to keep rents down in these projects was a
blend of conventional, market rate fInan-
cing and lower-interest government
loans, as well as grants, whose net effect
was to rehabilitation at affor-
dable levels. Among the public sources
used in conjunction with private sector
loans the city's "8A" program,
which provides three percent loans for
building $ystem replacement in multi-
family the city's Participation
Loan Program, which provides one per-
cent city financing for half of a rehab pro-
ject while conventional loans make up the
difference, and Federal "Section 8"
moderate rehabilitation subsidies.
This loan "leveraging" approach has
been used for basic systems work in scores
of apartment buildings since the 1980
lender commitments were secured, and
for the most part, the goal of affordable
rehab has been realizable. For example, a
recently closed ' deal for one University
Avenue building combined two savings
bank loans with public financing for a
total of $500,000 to pay for systems
replacement and other work. Because of
the lower net interest possible through
leveraging, as well as projected fuel sav-
ings through improved insulation and
heating, the owner agreed to a rent cap of
$81 per room. Under the capital im-
provements formula of the rent stabiliza-
tion system, he could be eligible for much
higher rents.
Separating OrganiZing and Development
When the Coalition moved into this
kind of loan packaging, it became clear
that more than an organizing staff was
needed, and members decided to spin off
a separate, non-profit housing corpora-
tion to handle development activities.
More recently, three other spin-off hous-
ing corporations have been formed.
Separated from the Coalition's organiz-
ing end, but identifying properties in need
through it, these corporations have mov-
ed beyond loan packaging and into the
management and ownership of tax-
foreclosed buildings.
This rapid movement into affordable
development is threatened, however,
since all such activities require public sec-
tor funding. All the city programs used in
the loan leveraging process are backed by
Federal Community Development funds,
which currently face drastic reductions.
Coalition members' characteristic
respOnse is to look for funding elsewhere.
The Exxon Campaign
And elsewhere, in this case, is among
the Fortune 500.
The two most recent targets of the
Coalition organizing - Chase Manhat-
tan and the Exxon Corporation - are
ranked high in that directory of corporate
America. Both have been approached to
help finance the most crucial improve-
inent needed in most of the northwest
Bronx's, and the city's, agilig pre-we.{
apartment buildings - weatherization.
After months of pressure, Chase is now
proposing some involvement on its part,
though the details have not been ironed
out. But Exxon has so far remained in-
transigent despite a steady organizing
campaign by Coalition members.
The Coalition's basic demand of Exx-
on, first expressed in a letter to board
chairman Clifton Garvin in December,
1981, is $12 million in energy aid: $10
million for low interest (three percent)
building weatherization loans, and $2
million in grants. Coalition members con-
tend that fuel savings would recoup the
investment before long, and that Exxon's
public stance in support of energy conser-
vation measures demands the company's
involvement. As a "birthday greeting"
sent by area residents to the company on
its lOOth anniversary last year put it: "Ex-
xon should use its vast resources to tap the
energy resources located right here at
home - in our neighborhoods."
The birthday message was just the first
in a series of actions that typify the
group's determined, lively approach to a
less-than- enthusiastic private sector. The
greeting congratulated Exxon on its
milestone, but quickly added that the
total weatherization demand of $12
million represented the company's hourly
revenue. During numerous meetings with
Coalition leaders during the next few
months, Exxon offflcials insisted that
such lending was out of the realm of its
corporate contributions.
In a March 9 letter to Chairman Gar-
vin, Anne Devenney persisted. "It was
clear from the outset. .. that Exxon's
21
purpose was to avoid these very real issues
and suggest we go elsewhere," she wrote.
"There is no where else to go. "
Turned down again, the Coalition
secured a letter of support for its proposal
sent to Garvin and signed by both New
York's Senators and several other
members of Congress. When this failed to
budge the corporate giant, Devenney and
other northwest Bronx residents attended
Ex.x on's annual shareholders' meeting in
May. There, the Coalition president
repeated the group's position and invited
Garvin to tour the neighborhood per-
sonally.
Again, Garvin declined, although his
office received numerous additional in-
vitations from other Coalition members.
So, in mid-August, a delegation of
neighborhood residents appeared at the
offices of the Business Round Table, a
private sector policy group, to exert fur-
ther pressure on Exxon, again inviting
company personnel to visit the Bronx.
They declined once more, and on
September 1 a neighborhood delegation
arrived at the midtown Exxon head-
quarters to demand an emergency
meeting with community leaders two
weeks later.
The company refused, but on
Joyce Kelter, South Fordham NWBCCC organizer.
" ;.
". .;.:,:::
September 14 the leaders showed up
anyway, along with about 200 other
demonstrators, in the Exxon lobby.
Two months later, a smaller group
" picketed one Exxon executive's home,
urging him to make a site visit to their
community. Shortly before Christmas, a
Coalition group returned to the Exxon
, building to deliver a proxy resolution for
the annual shareholders' meeting this
spring. The resolution calls for the forma-
tion of a committee to determine whether
Exxon can make loans for neighborhood
energy conservation.
No further actions have been mounted
in the Exxon campaign since then, but
more are clearly coming. Although the ef-
fort has so far yielded no concrete results,
Coalition members seem confident that
Exxon is on the run. "It took two and a
half years before we got Aetna to agree to
make their first loan," one member
recalls, "and we've only been dealing
with Exxon for about a year ..
That confidence and the Coalition's
experience in both organizing and hous-
ing development have helped convince
many northwest Bronx residents that
their community is, in fact, a going con-
cern. 0

1!r
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A N H 0
THE ASSOCIATION OF
NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSING DEVELOPERS
424 West 33rd Street
New York, N.Y. 10001
A Northwest Bronx Rehab
Uses Many Resources
By Diane Adler
Fran Sullivan. manager of 2656 Decatur Avenue. with building's salar panels.
W
HEN YOU GET OFF THE D
train at 196th Street in the Bronx,
you are in the heart of the Fordham-
Bedford neighborhood, an area that
resembles a dozen others in that part of
the north Bronx. Five blocks east to
Decatur Avenue, one block south,
beneath a small, somewhat worn sign
reading Fordham-Bedford Neighbor-
hood Corporation, and down a flight of
rickety stairs, there is a dark, busy and
crowded office. This is the headquarters
of a neighborhood organization that has
become the first not-for-profIt group in
the city to "close" a Moderate Section 8
Rehab project - a federally subsidized
program that has caused some of the
c i t y ' ~ most experienced builders to stum-
ble as they try to carry it out. It is also the
first developer not to use government
23
funding to help finance the construction.
The Fordham-Bedford project in-
volves 35 occupied apartments in two
buildings, 260 East 194th St., and 2656
Decatur Avenue. Some $595,000 in con-
struction loans are being provided by
Manufacturers Hanover, and Aetna Life
and Casualty Insurance Co. is providing
the permanent fmancing. This use of
private fmancing has given the group
greater flexibility, its leaders say, in deter-
mining the project's scope, than they
would have had utilizing public financ-
ing. At the same time, the group pointed
out, it saw no reason why government
fmancing should be used in a project that
is already receiving the federal Section 8
subsidy itself to assist the rents. Getting to
the point of construction, however, was a
long road.
Finance Negotiations
In September, 1980, one month after
FBHC frrst applied to the city for ap-
proval to do a Moderate Section 8, the ap-
plication was approved. That was an
event that John Reilly, executive director
of the group,now recalls led them to think
they "were all set" to do the project.
After spending one and one-half years
preparing a scope of work on a scale never
before attempted by FBHC, preparing
contracts, getting bonding for a general
contractor, insurance, establishing terms
between the permanent fInancer and the
construction fInancer for the Buy-Sell
Agreement (the terms under which the
permanent fmancer would buyout the
~ construction fmancer), the bank that was
z to do the construction financing pulled
~ out. That was the low point for the group_
~ FBHC's staff, Reilly recalls, "had to take
a day and get it out of our system and then
change gears and try something else." In
March, 1982, new negotiations began
with Manufacturers Hanover. In
January, 1983 the deal was closed.
Difficulties with this project began at
its inception, when FBHC took title to
260 East 194th St., a IS-unit building with
four occupied apartments and a rent roll
of $400, that is located on a key comer at
194th St. and Briggs Ave. The building's
vacant apartments needed painting and
plastering; front doors were open, the
cornice and windows needed repairs and
the basement had flooded. The building's
plumbing was so bad that Reilly doesn't
know "how it held together as long as it
did."
Having taken title to the building,
FBHC found that it was in a "difficult
situation for a neighborhood group to be
in. The building wasn't in the kind of con-
dition that obviously we wanted it to be
in, and we owned it and ran it." As Reilly
explains, "While we could see the pro-
gress and neighborhood people could see
the progress, new tenants moving in
couldn't understand. That's the way it
should have been. Really, they should
keep on us to keep upgrading it so we
would make the repairs."
The development costs for the rehab
project are estimated to be $11,000 per
unit and the post-rehab rents (which will
be absorbed by the rent cushion provided
by the Section 8 subsidy) are projected to
be around $100 per room on 194th St.,
and $80 per room on Decatur Avenue.
Reinvestment Agreements
The group's ties with the Northwest
Bronx Community aI\d Clergy Coalition
(NWBCC) provided invaluable assistance
in getting the financing for the Moderate
Section 8, particularly reinvestment
agreements that NWBCC has worked out
with institutions like Aetna. Yet these
a ~ e e m e n t s are "nothing that anyone else
couldn't use," says Reilly, nor does he
think that FBHC is "doing anything
special here, other than just keeping after
things, following up and making sure we
cover all the angles. There are different
situations in each building and you have
to bend the different programs and make
them work."
FBHC has the flexibility to enter into a
variety of situations: They are and have
served as judgement receivers, 7 A Ad-
ministrators, in City-ownership, out of
, City-ownership, they have worked ill
buildings abandoned by private owners,
in buildings where tenants are on rent
strike and they've worked with private
owners. Thus while many organizations
do only one or two things, FBHC's
abilities are, as Father John Jenick, Presi-
dent of Fordham-Bedford, says, "multi-
faceted. If something else comes up we
get involved with that and see if we can
pass the information on to people living
ill the neighborhood."
At that time, though FBHC was incor-
porated and had a Board of Directors, it
had no funding at all. To keep the project
going, each board member kicked in $25,
people donated time, energy and labor,
and a local contractor extended them
credit for the plumbing. Saving the
building was, said Reilly, "very much a
community effort. Yet there's no reason
why '260' made it, other than people
didn't give up on it. There were any
number of times when we could have just
said that's it. At one point Con Edison
came in and red-tagged the boiler [thus
shutting it down for a few days] because
the basement was so bad they weren't cer-
tain they wanted a gas boiler down there.
Stubborness is the kt;y. After having
come that far with it, we just couldn't let
it go. For all the problems the building
has had in the three years that we held on
to it, it's been worth it."
The building now has only one vacancy,
and Reilly thinks it is at the point where it
could hold its own, though, eventually
without the Moderate Section 8 the
plumbing problem would have outstrip-
ped the building'S resources. "That
building was allowed to deteriorate for 15
years," Fran Sullivan,0ne of the founders
of FBHC notes. "If it had been kept up
all along," Reilly adds, "I don't see why
anyone couldn't have kept running it. It
could have made ends meet.
Relative to 260 East 194th St., the
Decatur Ave. building has been relatively
problem-free, with little tenant turnover
since the group bought the building from
the City three years ago. Rents in both
buildinps currently run at about $185 for
a three 100m unit and $200 for a four
room apartment. Obviously Reilly
acknowledges, "with rents like that
there's no big money, though most
landlords are charging more than that.
There's just so much you can get out of a
person who doesn't have the money.
You're taking it out of something that
they don't have anyway. It's a problem
for us in a lot of the buildings in that the
tenants just don't have as much money as
it takes to run the buildings effectively
which is one of the reasons they have to
play a bigger role in running their own
buildings. They have to make up for that
somehow."
24
While the work on the Moderate Sec-
tion 8 project progresses, FBHC is
already preparing its next line of attack -
the rehabilitation of small houses in the
neighborhood. Several approaches are
planned. FBHC wants to work with pres-
ent small homeowners by assisting them
in getting their finances in better shape
thereby preventing them from losing their
homes, and it also wants to rehab some of
the approximately 18 vacant houses in the
area, many of which are owned by the
Federal Department of Housing and Ur-
ban Development and the Veteran's Ad-
ministration. To this end a foundation
has asked FBHC to submit a proposal for
a grant to completely rehabilitate three
empty buildings which will then be of-
fered for sale. Father Jenik would like
FBHC to arrange low interest loans from
foundations to buy and then manage
buildings in the "not-for-profit sense of
the '60s." FBHC also plans to utilize the
City's Department of Housing, Preserva-
tion and Development's Housing Im-
provement Program and other
weatherization programs to provide
education and assistance. Though there is
a temptation to bring in as many
buildings as possible, "that's one thing
we do," Reilly warns, "make sure we
don't bite off more than we can chew.
There's more buildings out there that we
have to work with but we want to do it
one at a time."O
Diane Adler is a Bronx resident and
works for the Alternative Management
Programs of the City hOUSing depart-
ment.
DIll
------------------------------------------------
Anne Devenney of the Northwest Bronx 'The Real Grassroots'
By Julia MacDonneU Cbang
"My class, the working class, is ex-
ploited, driven, fought back with the
weapons of starvation, with guns and
with venal courts whenever they strikefor
conditions more human, more civilized
for their children and their children's
children . ..
I have been up against armed
mercenaries, but this old woman . .. with
nothing but a hat pin, has scared them ... "
-Mary Harris, "Mother Jones"
"The greedy and the powerful hurt us,
the little people. Government is
mismanaged, has been for years. Big lob-
byists can go in and get bills passed while
we're ignored . ..
Racism in our neighborhoods is caused
by politics. By poor people fighting over
bits and pieces, saying, 'This is mine . .. '
It's time to change all that. The little peo-
ple made this country great and we will
again . . . we must, for the children. We
must give them safe, decent
neighborhoods again .. . "
-Anne Devenney
Anne Devenney, president of the
Northwest Bronx CornrlhUuty and Clergy
Coalition, settles her visitor onto !l worn
plaid couch amid handmade afghan'S and
pillows.
"Some women wear furs and jewels,"
she remarks as she arranges a TV tray
ladened with corned beef and cabbage,
potatoes, carrots, bread, butter, tea and
cookies.
"I wear food."
The cherubic Devenney gestures
toward her stout, polyester-clad figure
and skewers her guest with a twinkling
smile. "But breaking bread .. . it brings
people together. Don't you think? Now,
what can I tell you about the coalition?"
Without waiting for an answer, Deven-
ney, 62, the mother of four and grand-
mother of 11, seats herself in a nearby
armchair and launches into a dizzying
chronicle of her decade with the
NWBCCC. It is a time in which the coali-
tion survived the demise of the CETA
Anne Devenney.
jobs program and drastic cuts in federal
social service spending to become a
powerful neighborhood preservation net-
work with a dozen community offices
and a million-dollar budget.
"We're the real grassroots," she says,
then offers a jumble of anecdotes: a ten-
ant's victory in court; a march on Wall
Street; a failed attempt to keepaCitibank
branch office open; a strategy to improve
housing court; a candlelight vigil at City
Hall for those who froze to death in
heatless apartments.
Her tales of skirmishes at City Hall, in
Albany and Washington, are interrupted
by mundane matters: "Do you need
mustard? How about a pickle?"
Yet she is clear about the coalition's
ideological thrust, its belief that banks,
insurance companies, merchants and oil
companies owe something to the people
25
who give them profits.
Street Smart
"We've become street smart. We're
learning to help ourselves," she says of
the coalition's increasing emphasis on
neighborhood reinvestment. "We went
to the insurance companies and told them
to stop redlining our neighborhoods,'You
used to knock on our doors; we told
them,' selling nickIe policies to the poor.
Now we're knocking on yours .. :
"Now we've gone to Exxon for a
weatherization fund. Ten million dollars?
That's starting small. We're giving them a
chance to show that corporate America
has a heart ... "
Devenney pauses to take a sip of tea.
"I've given up reading Orphan
Annie," she says. "Now I read the Dow
Jones averages."
Her saga of activism apparently com-
plete, Devenney, who never touched her
meal, leans forward in her seat. "I'm a
senior," she says. "But I'm no bingo
player. I play for higher stakes . .. ..
Who writes her material?
Before you can ask, she interrupts.
"Don't move. Improve. That's my
motto."
She gazes out her front window at a
vista dominated by the John F.X.
McKeon Funeral Home, her hands
together in a gesture of prayer. "The
Bronx," she says, "There's so much
that's the best in it .. . The rest of us must
reinvest in it. . . ..
Devenney is described by those who
work with her as an inspiration, the
spiritual force of the coalition.
She doesn't get technical about
issues," says Gerald Mooney, a former
coalitJion organizer and now president of '
the Fordham-Bedford Coalition. "But
she speaks from the heart. She's just so
human."
Mooney says Devenney succeeds with
elected officials and business executives
when younger, brasher activists fail. "A
TU VlCTOBY FOB
BOIlEOWllEBS
AND NYPlBG
It was a remarkable news conference
that the City Finance Department held
last January 17th to release the new 1983
property tax assessments.
First, Finance Commissioner Philip
Michael told'the media that the City was
lowering assessments on over 56,000
one-, two-and three-family homes,
predominantly in poorer and minority
city neighborhoods. These assessments
were lowered over a total'of $107,000,000
and, coupled with changes in assessments
in 1982, surpassed the number of assess-
ment reductions during the previous 30
years.
Michael announced that the reductions
were targeted to address longstanding
and well known inequities in a City pro-
perty tax assessment system that
discriminates against lower-income
homeowners. These inequities had been
documented by a variety of civic and
CITY LIMITS/March 1983 '
lot of their fears are allayed because she
has this grandmotherly image," he said.
"She tells them funny stories and they
trust her."
Devenney's sense of humor failed her
completely, she says, when she, her hus-
band and children were evicted from their
Washington Heights apartment through
the laws of eminent domain.
It happened more than a quarter cen-
tury ago: their elegant Art Deco building,
60 Cabrini Blvd., was demolished to
make way for an onramp to the George
Washington Bridge.
"We weren't organized, " she says of
tbose living in the 50-unit building at the
time. "So it was easy for the governrnent
to come in and do something like that."
Devenney learned a bitter lesson from
that eviction: "We've all got a respon-
sibility to know what our rights are, " she
says. "We've got a responsibility to pro-
tect those rights."
In the late 1960's, those rights came
under attack again as her new building
began to change hands and services disap-
peared. This time, she became active in
the tenants' association. Her involvement
academic groups, including the New
York Public Interest Research Group,
Inc. (NYPIRG.) NYPIRG has been
organizing overassessed homeowners
over the last two years in waging an often
heated battle with the Finance Depart-
ment to eradicate the problem. (See
"Unequal Neighbors Gain a Powerful
Tool," City Limits, December, 1982.)
Which is why it was even more
remarkable when Michael credited
NYPIRG's efforts at the news con-
ference. Michael went out of his way to
introduce NYPIRG Staff Att9rney Gene
Russianoff and Tax Reform Director
Frank Domurad, saying, "These
gentlemen are from NYPIRG. They have
been supplying the Finance Department
with reliable information we have been
using to target neighborhoods for assess-
ment reductions." When his staff had
difficulty in answering a New York Post
26
grew over the years, and when the coali-
tion was' begun she joined.
Today she still makes her home in the
same building and she shares her large,
cluttered fifth-floor walk-up at the bustl-
ing corner of Perry Avenue and 20Sth
Street with her husband, John, a con-
sulting engineer, her daughters, 'Betty and
Carol, a cat named J.T. and a tank of
tropical fish. ,
Her husband's love and support makes
her work possible, Devenney says. "He's
a wonderful husband, father, grand-
father," she says. "He's quiet, shy, an in-
ner person. I'm an outer. That's why we,
get along so well ." .
Despite frequent absences from home,
Devenney says she is compelled to work.
"I see death carried in and out every day,"
she says gesturing toward the funeral
home. "It reminds me to do what I can in
the time I've got .. . And when I SO, I tell
my kids, they better put an agenda in the
box with me. I can't go anyplace lately
without an agenda . .... 0
Julia MacDonnell Chang lives in a tenant-
owned building in the Bronx and is a free
lance writer.
reporter's questions as to the areas which
had receive'd the most reductions,
Michael asked, "Gene, which are the
neighborhoods you asked us to target?"
Russianoff, savoring a major victory
after two years of struggle, said: "Well,
Phil, there's Far Rockaway, Queens, and
Wingate and North East Flatbush and
Crown Heights in Brooklyn and .....
Russianoff told reporters, after the
news conference, "There's still a lot of
overassessed homeowners, particularly
those in three family residences. But the
fact there's still a good deal to be done
doesn't blind us to how far we've come in
the last two years. Under Commissioner
Michael's administration, residential
property taxes have become much fairer
for low income and minority
homeowners." 0
The Forgotten Eviction Clause By P.J. Kamens
T
ENANT ADVOCATES ARE
mobilizing to prevent the state
legislature from re-enacting by "gentlemen's
agreement" a controversial section of the
rent stabilization law which was in-
advertently repealed last summer. The ex-
cised provision, which permitted the ouster
of tenants from apartments sought for the
landlord's personal use, has been attacked
by housing groups because of its potential
for abuse.
The elimination of the personal use pro-
vision occurred last July, when state
legislators, anxious to enact a revised co-
op conversion bill at the end of the session,
'passed a draft from which 23 crucial words
were omitted. As a result, a Manhattan
housing court judge recently ruled, the sec-
tion of the rent stabilization code which
permits landlords not to renew leases when
they seek an apartment for their own use,
is invalid and without statutory authority.
The state legislature intended a swift and
silent re-enactment of the provision through
agreement by the leadership of both the
Republican-controlled Senate and the
usually pro-tenant Assembly. A coalition
of city councilmembers and tenant leaders,
however, has urged the legislature to delay
re-enactment of the provision until June,
when the Emergency Tenant Protection
Act, which covers the majority of the ci-
ty's 875,000 rent stabilized apartments, is
due to expire. "Our rent regulations are a
mess," said council member Ed Wallace.
"The personal use provision should not be
considered piecemeal , but in conjunction
with reforms of the entire system." As a
result of tenant lobbying, the bill to re-enact
the personal use provision has been delayed
in committee and is scheduled for further
hearings.
Tenant advocates' criticism of the per-
sonal use provision suggests that it should
not be re-enacted without reform. Under
the provision, they note, an owner could
seek an apartment for parents and children
who are not part of her household and have
no investment in the building. The section
has been used frequently when co-op con-
versions were sought, according to
Wallace, since family member tenants vote
for co-op plans landlords favor. Another
common problem, say tenant lawyers, was
the use of the provision to empty apart-
ments which were never used by the
landlord's family, but were illegally relet at
a higher market rent.
The effect of the provision on long-term
tenants, who are the frequent victims of the
law, can be significant, since under it there
was no limit on the number of apartments
a landlord could seek for himself and his
family. For example, a Columbia Univer-
sity professor who purchased a six-story
mansion on Riverside Drive sought to evict
approximately ten fumilies to provide space
for himself, his wife and child, a nurse and
his mother-in-law. The possibility of wide-
spread displacement increases when a
building is owned by several persons . ..
Legislation has been introduced by
several state legislators, including
Assemblyman Dick Gottfried, to restrict
the personal use exemption. The Gottfried
bill prohibits eviction of elderly and disabl-
ed tenants, as well as tenants who have
. resided in their buildings for 20 years or
more. The protection for long term tenants
will not protect many in rent stabilized
apartments, however, since most 20-year
residents are rent-controlled. The Gottfried
bill also requires a landlord to show that
she seeks the apartment because of an iI:Il-
mediate and compelling necessity.
. The most far-reaching proposals for
reform of the personal use provision have
been circulated among state legislators by
the tenant law firm of Hartman, Ule &
Rose. They recommend limiting the
number of apartments or amount of space
an owner can obtain, permitting a court to
consider the tenant's hardship, requiring
landlords who use the provision to offer
evicted tenants any vacant apartments at
equivalent rents, and providing stiff
penalties for fraudulent abuse of the
provision. 0
P.l. Kamens is an attorney who works
primarily with housing issues.
- -
Energy Audits, Specifications and technical
assistance, Investigated contractors. Complete line
of conservation projects at discount, Financing
___ options.
BROOKLYN ENERGY COOPERATIVE 562 Atlantic Ave. (near 4th Ave.) 858-8803
27
Using the Renter's Tax Credit
T
HIS YEAR FOR THE FIRST
time, homeowners or tenants over
65 years old who earn $16,000 or less and
pay up to $300-a-month in rent or ad-
justed services may be eligibile for refUn-
dable tax credits from the state that could
amount to several hundred dollars.
For taxpayers under 65 but in this same
income bracket, the maximum that can
be refunded is $45.
What makes this tax provision dif-
ferent from many others is that the in-
dividual receives money back from the
state - an actual cash grant - rather
than just a credit against his/her total
payment.
This year's maximum allowable in-
come limit is up $2,500 from last year's
Hearings on City's In Rem Program
The Housing Committee of the state
Assembly will hold the first hearings ever
conducted by the legislature on the city's
six-year-old In Rem Housing program
March 10 and II at 'DO Broadway in Man-
hattan. Chaired by Manhattan Democrat
Alexander ("Pete") Grannis, head of the
Housing Committee, the hearings will go
from II a.m. to 8 p.m. on Thursday, March
10, and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
March ll. Invited guests, in addition to the
public, will include Mayor Koch, local
politicians, and city housing officials. Par-
ticipants are asked to evalute the program,
assess its strengths and weaknesses. Hous-
ing officials will be available to explain
their programs and respond to criticism.
For more information, call 488-4836.0
figure of $13,500 for an individual or
family.
Known as the Real Property Tax
Credit, or I.T. 214, this tax provision was
first enacted by the state legislature in
1978 to aid low income taxpayers who
were paying property taxes and rents that
were disproportionately high in relation-
ship to their incomes.
According to officials at the state
Department of Taxation and Finance, the
credit, contrary to reports from many ad-
vocacy groups, in particular those serving
the aging, is well utilized. Since the pro-
gram's inception, they reported, $70.3
million in tax credits have been paid out.
Initially available only to seniors, this
credit was expanded to include all in-
Training Program: SHELTERFORCE,
the national, tenant grassroots publication,
will hold an intensive two-day training pro-
gram for housing activists March 24 and
25 at its headquarters in East Orange, N.J.
-located just 30 minutes west of New York
City. The cost of the two-day session will
be $150 per person. Partial scholarships
will be available for those who qualify. The
cost will cover all materials for the two
days. Separate arrangements for room and
board must be made. Limited enrollment.
For more information, call Woody Widrow
at (201) 678-6778.0
More Training and Organizing: The Na-
tional Training and Information Center
(NTIC), a Chicago-based resource center
for community groups, is holding special
one-week sessions in neighborhood organ-
izing. Topics include issue, organizational,
and leadership development; fund-raising;
and working with volunteer boards. Ses-
sions are currently planned for March
21-25, June 13-17, and October 17-21. For
more information, call or write to Shel
Trap, NTIC, H23 W. Washington Blvd.,
28
dividuals of limited fmancial means.
In order to qualify for the credit, an in-
dividual or family must have lived at the
same address for six months and been a
New York State resident for a minimum
of a year.
Counted as eligible income is
unemployment insurance, Supplemental
Security Income (SSI), cash public
assistance (all types other than medical
care), and nontaxable strike benefits.
For further assistance, call or write to
the New York District Office of the state
Department of Taxation and Finance at
Two World Trade Center, New York
City 10047. Telephone: (212)
S.B.
Chicago, IL 606CJ7. Telephone: (312)
243-3035.0
North Queens Housing Conference:
Housing Workshops for tenants,
homeowners, co-op owners, and senior
citizens will be held Saturday, March 12
from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at I.S. 271, 32-02
Junction Boulevard, Jackson Heights,
Queens. Breakfast and lunch will be pro-
vided. For more information, call
Neighborhood Preservation, 898-1400;
Neighborhood Stabilization, 898-1160;
Community Board #3, 458-2707.0
Displacement and Gentrification Art
Show Political Art Documentation
Distribution is sponsoring an art show on
housing in New York City beginning May
15 and running through June 16. Artists/Ac-
tivists are invited to contribute art. There
is a possibility of limited gallery space.
Street performances, art, or related exhibits
in the neighborhoods where artists live are
welcome. For more information, call
PADD at 420-8196 by March 31 at the latest
in order to be in the show. 0
Not Resigned ill Crown Heights
To the Editor:
Your recent article about Crown Heights entitled,
"Brooklyn Harassment is Still Unresolved," (January, 1983)
contained a number of inaccuracies. However, I will not com-
ment on these inaccuracies in this letter. But, I would like to
call your attention to the last item in your article entitled
"Director Must Resign." You indicate that I have been
ordered by the New York State Division of Housing and Com-
munity Renewal to resign my position as Executive Director of
the Crown Heights Jewish Community Council or to resign my
elected office of District Leader IState Committeeman for the
43rd Assembly District.
I must tell you that this is a false I was never told
by the New York State Division of Housing and Community
Renewal to resign as Executive Director of the Neighborhood
Preservation Program, which is funded by the New York State
Division of Housing and Community Renewal. When I was
first told this by the State Housing Agency I explained to them
that I was an unpaid director of this program, never having
received any money whatsoever from serving as director of our
Neighborhood Preservation Program. The funds were utilized
for other purposes and at no time whatsoever did I receive
fmancial renumeration for services performed within the con-
text of the Neighborhood Preservation Program. New York
State Division of Housing and Community Renewal did accept
this explanation and allowed me to continue as the unpaid
Director of our Neighborhood Preservation Program.
I was not told verbally shortly after the election, but rather
on December 20th to resign from my position as Director of
the Council's Neighborhood Preservation Program. The
gentleman with whom I spoke at the State Housing Agency
told me that even though I was an unpaid Director, his boss
was interpreting the statute very literally and that she wanted
me to resign. I told the person at the state agency that I
disagreed with this interpretation because I was not being paid
for the services provided but nevertheless, I would comply with
their request.
I am enclosing a copy of the letter which I sent to the New
York State Department of Housing and Community Renewal
on December 21, 1982, clearly indicating that I am resigning
my position as unpaid Director of the Neighborhood Preserva-
tion Program. When that letter was received by the state fur-
ther funds were immediately released. I must reiterate that at
no time was I asked by this state agency to resign from my posi-
tion as Director of the Council but was rather requested to
resign my position as unpaid Director of the Neighborhood
Preservation Program.
Since you consider yourself a responsible reporter, I would
like to know why you did not grant me the courtesy of calling
me to confmn that this is true. Every single newspaper that
ever wants to write a story about the Council, about Crown
Heights or about me always offers the courtesy of first calling
to confmn the authenticity and/or the validity of a statement.
Why did you not call me to confirm that this statement alleged-
ly given to you by spokesman Mark Bodden was true or false?
As it turns out,Mr. Mark Bodden never spoke to me,and I was
never asked to resign from the Council. I would expect that in
your next issue you will issue an apology or at least an explana-
tion about the error contained in your article. This inaccuracy
must be corrected in your next issue. I would like you to send
me a copy of the apology and correction which I expect you to
print in your next issue.
Rabbi Yisroel Rosenfeld
Executive Director
Crown Heights Jewish Community Council
The regulations governing the administration of the state's
Neighborhood Preservation Program are clear: in order to
keep politics out of the program as much as possible, no board
member or stqff of a Neighborhood Preservation Company
may hold political office. Unfortunately, just as the program
itself has been wounded by the political demands of state
legislators, so too has its administration. Rabbi Rosenfeld's
"resignation" has been accepted at this point by DHCR,
despite the original interpretation by DHCR's Commissioners
that he would have to choose between his two posts. The court-
ordered rematch on the District Leader election may lead to a
new decision by the state, but we accUrately reported what they
said they intended to do. Rabbi Rosenfeld neglects to mention
that he spoke with me by phone and insisted that he would
carry out both jobs and there was no conflict between them.
He now disputes DHCR's version of events. If he is confused,
perhaps it's because there is no such bureaucratic beast as the
State Housing Agency. Editor
29
It's the System
To the Editor:
The story on Frank Potts of the South Bronx (People,
February, 1983) was interesting, and he's clearly a remarkable
person. But when I finished reading the article I found the
writers' message to be that if everyone was like Frank Potts, the
South Bronx would never have fallen into the shape it did. I think
not. What's affecting the neighborhoods of New York is, unfor-
tunately, much bigger than strong, working individuals. The
forces that first produced neighborhood abandonment and now
gentrification and displacement have been far more powerful and
effective than the countervailing neighborhood housing move-
ment which is made up of individual residents and organized
community groups with much spirit and energy, but limited
resources. Yes, we need dedicated people to help rebuild our
communities, but we also need an infusion of capital which can
only come from the government whose job must be to insure
that everyone has a decent and affordable home.
Harriet Cohen

East Fourth St. Manhattan
'Tha Killing of AIIgal s ..... r
Sydney's Displacement Battles ... And OUIS
The Killing of Angel Street, directed by
Donald Crombie; screenplay by Evan .
Jones, Michael Craig and Cecil Holmes.
Original story by Michael Craig; produc-
ed by Anthony Buckley; released by
Satori. Made in Australia, 1981. Color.
At theD.W. Griffith in March.
A
N AUSTRALIAN MOVIE
called "The Killing of Angel
Street" is to open in Manhattan in
March. Because the movie is about the
displacement of low income city residents
for a profitable real estate development,
the distributors of the fUm have sought
out some of the media that reaches hous-
ing activists to tell them about it. That was
a good idea. For "The Killing of Angel
Street" is so loosely stitched together and,
alternately, truly frightening that the
story and its content are likely to either be
dismissed as unbelievable or forgotten as
the terror itself becomes more important
than its source and cause. But the story of
"The Killing of Angel Street" resembles
many of the real life pitched battles that
have been fought in New York and
around the country between poor resi-
dents and developers seeking their
removal.
On Angel Street, in Sydney, the stakes
are familiar. As one developer describes
it, " ... sailors, waitresses and unem-
ployed artists who never pay the rent"
. dwell in what's left of some picturesque
stucco buildings commanding a breath-
taking waterside city view. The fierce con-
frontation between those who have
elected to stay and the police and goons
working on behalf of the developers takes
place amid a chaos of demolition. Sheets
of tin roofmg hurtle dangerously through
the air, sledgehammers swing perilously
near peoples' heads, and bulldozers roam
menacingly up and down the street.
The head developer, who is only mildly
ruthless, is called Sir Arthur Wadham. (A
similar system of titles in New York
'7he Killing of Angel Street:
would give us Lord Helmsley, Sir Trump
and the Duke of Lefrak.) Sir Wadham,
however, has brought in a particularly
nasty venture capitalist named simply
Collins. Collins owns a nightclub, wears
sunglasses after dark, and has a much
more urgent timetable for development.
During the siege of Angel Street, the
development group uses murder by ar-
son, kidnapping, beatings, dog mutilia-
tion, police provocateurs, political string
pulling, even the theft of a tenant's toilet
bowl to drive the pesky Angel Street
residents away.
The resisters, though, appear to have
almost no popular support. The tenants
and homeowners break out of their isola-
tion only when an appeal is made to the
wreckers' union to boycott the develop-
ment. (Apparently in Sydney the mob has
not armexed that organization, an over-
sight it hasn't made in most of this coun-
try.)
Throughout the movie there is
reference made to the actual case of a
Sydney housing activist, Juanita Nielsen,
whose disappearance in the late 19705 was
blamed, but never proven, on real estate
developers. A documentary concerned
with that episode has circulated in the
30
U.S. The references are presumably made
to reinforce the authenticity of the story,
an effect that may work on Australian
viewers but will be lost on most
Americans.
"It's the unholy trinity," says the
avowedly communist organizer working
with Angel Street's tenants. " ... Big
business, organized crime and govern-
ment. How can you win?"
How indeed in Sydney, or, for that
matter, in New York. The day before we
saw the movie, a father and his 14-year-
old son perished in an arson blaze in a
tenement in the disputed developer-
sought turf of lower East Harlem. Just a
block west of the building where we
screened the movie, at Tenth Avenue and
42nd Street, tenants are still recovering
from their shock at awakening some
weeks ago to fmd bulldozers, complete
with a mysterious illegally-issued permit,
tearing down their buildings. They are
only now reading the decision of a city
hearing officer on the culpability of their
building managers for acts of harass-
ment. One of those landlords is indicted
and convicted for arson. Another is cur-
rently carrying out government subsidiz-
ed renovations.D T .R.
--------------------------
EXECUTIVE DIRECfOR
Bronx Heights Neighborhood Community Corporation,
a housing and neighborhood revitalization group in the
Morris Heights area of the Bronx, seeks an Executive
Director. Qualifications: B.A. degree, four years ex-
perience in community organizing, housing rehabilita-
tion or urban planning and development. Three years
supervisory experience. Salary $23,000.
Send resume to: B.H.N.C.C.
99 Featherbed Lane
Bronx, New York 10452
COMING IN APRIL'S
CITY LIMITS
Democracy and Development-A Look Back
at the People's Development Corporation,
1974-1979. By Steve Katz
Tenants' Taeticy-How to Research Your
Landlord, Part One
Raising the Bueks-A New Feature on Fund
Raising
Energy-Windows that Weatherize
REAL ESTATE AND
HOUSING COURSES
NY322 Coping Without Section 8 Housing
Assistance
A 1day workshop. Fri.; 9:30 am-4:3O pm, Mar. 25. $55.
Carol Lamberg, Executive Director, Settlement
Housing Fund
NY320 Living With the Zoning Resolution
A .6 ~ s s i o n s . Mon., 7:45-9:30 pm, beg. Apr. 11 . $80.
Sylvia Deutsch, Chairperson, NYC Board of Stand-
ards and Appeals
NY321 Principles of Real Estate Investment
A 6 sessions. Mon., 5:50-7:35 pm, beg. Apr . .4. $80.
Abram Barkan, President, James Felt Services
NY323 Fundamentals of Real Estate Tax
Shehered Investments
A 6 sessions. Mon., 7:45-9:30 pm, beg. Apr. 4. $80.
Marvin D. Kenlgsberg, First Vice Presidtfflt,
Integrated Resources, Inc.
111_" (212) 741-7924
sail
Free Insurance Appraisal
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groups for over 10 years, is offering to the readers of City Limits a free insurance
appraisal of their building. /
We know your needs, your requirements, and how to help you get insurance
financing. And most important, we can get you the best prices.
For a free insurance appraisal of your building and an evaluation of your current
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