Monday, February 21, 2011

How did it get to this point?


From CBS:

Dozens of families in Upper Manhattan were suddenly homeless Friday night after their apartment building was deemed too dangerous to live in, reports CBS 2’s Hazel Sanchez.

With barely a moment’s notice, dozens of Inwood residents living in a dilapidated building found themselves carting their belongings on the street.

The Department of Buildings evacuated 552 Academy St. after discovering the building in deplorable condition, sighting more than 1,000 open housing code violations.


And guess what? We're gonna pay for it.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is absolutely NO excuse for what happened up there, but there is an explanation.

The short answer is: The mid-nineties are still with us in NYC.

After Giuliani, then Pataki were elected they quietly set about gutting agencies such as HPD and seeding the housing courts with landlord-friendly judges (many are landlords themselves).

My Brother worked in both Dinkins and Giuliani's adm's When "Rudy" took over there was a definite "chill" sent out to these sorts of enforcement agencies. Staffs were cut and reassigned.

The republicans had gotten a -lot- of money from the landlord groups to help elect these two bastards and it was pay back time.

Giuliani and Pataki are gone, Bruno is on his was to prison, but the decisions made in '93 and '94 carry over into the current republican administration.

We are still living with the consequences, working class people suffer as a result.

Anonymous said...

I got but just six words for why this building got to this point.
'Rent control, rent control, rent control.'
With section 8's tenants paying $88 dollars a mounth for a two bedroom apartment, and Mike the Mayor, still raising your property values during the worst housing depression in history. There's no money to fix major building problems.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...

I got but just six words for why this building got to this point.
'Rent control, rent control, rent control.'
With section 8's tenants paying $88 dollars a mounth for a two bedroom..."

See, what we have here is a typical liar or totally ignorant person out of his depth and going on stupid ideology.

Start your journey from idiocy here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_8_%28housing%29

Don't worry, knowledge may disrupt your beliefs but it'll leave your kids a better world.

Anonymous said...

My building on Nagle is still boarded up and it's been over six months since our building was on fire. Our building is full of hardworking people, not thugs. Upper Manhattan is not considered to be part of Manhattan by our city. Unless you're rich, Bloomturd doesn't give a rats ass about you.

Anonymous said...

Hey Anonymous of "$88 dollars a mounth for a two bedroom...".
Happy to get you 'rent control' tenants' worked up. Must you go so personal right away to win your argument. The first structural complaint according to NYCDOB was in 1992. The problem with the "rent control" tenants is that they know they can't leave the apartment for fear of losing their 'plum'. My management company has had rent control tenants remaining in their burned out apartments, stepping from floor joist to floor joist so as not to lose their ridiculous low rents, yet stopping any access to make repairs demanded by NYCDOB and HPD. The violations pile up and the building falls down. Hey Anonymous how the house in the Hamptons or was it Boca ? Nice to have money.

Anonymous said...

rent control tenants remaining in their burned out apartments, stepping from floor joist to floor joist so as not to lose their ridiculous low rents,

IM ONE OF THOSE TENANTS!!!!

Anonymous said...

SLUMLORD WARNING- be warned the comment before this one was from a sleazy slumlord who is trying to force all the old people out of a building . He got the apartment building at a very low price when he purchased it because of rent control. Now this slumlord just wants to force out old people so he can keep jacking up the rents way past what the DHCR allows. Apartment buildings are simply cash cows.
AND the slumlord wants you to think that he is on the side of the law and doesn't lie. Don't believe the hype.

Anonymous said...

It is a f*cking DISGRACE that with the huge construction boom that has been going on for YEARS - the city has been gutting the DOB - there should be 10x MORE building inspectors in the city, not less.

And an EYE should be kept on these inspectors to minimize the possibility of them taking bribes.

Anonymous said...

Why purchase a rent-controlled building to manage if all you're going to do is bitch and moan about said renters defending what they are legally entitled to? Anyway, it's far cheaper to properly maintain a building than to neglect it for a decade and then fix it when you have no other choice.