CITY LIMITS

2 CITY LIMITS Junel July 1986

CITY LIMITS
Volume XI Number 6
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FROM THE EDITOR
Broadening Fair Housing Law
The housing crisis gives new meaning to the domino theory as the
shortage of affordable housing reverberates through people's lives in
ways that never cease to amaze and horrify. For six months, City Limits
conducted a special investigation into a widespread syndrome that
plagues women who are caught in the vise-grip of that crisis. Until
recently, it was an invisible problem that was subsumed under a host
of other obstacles faced by those who are most vulnerable to "free market
forces." But both locally and nationally, sexual harassment of women
by landlords, superintendents and other men who can affect their hous-
ing options is beginning to gain the attention of fair housing advocates.
Over 25 individuals were interviewed and 50 social service and
women's advocacy organizations were contacted to begin to define sex-
ual harassment in housing. The results were not unexpected but no less
startling: sexual harassment is an enormous problem that effects all age,
race and income groups but hits low income women hardest. The reluc-
tance of most women to discuss incidences of harassment is due to fear
of retaliation, ignorance of their rights under the Fair Housing Act and
the natural shame attached to sexual abuse of any kind. As one Brooklyn
housing organizer told us, he knew the problem existed but low income
people are especially hesitant to talk about such personal, intimate
subjects and instead internalize them. The women who did speak openly
to us about their experiences were acutely aware of the risks of doing
so but felt compelled to expose the scandals and pursue justice.
That goal maybe within reach now that several important legal actions
have placed sexual harassment in housing on the agenda of fair housing
agencies. A landmark decision in Toledo's federal court has established
that when a landlord "pollutes" the living environment with a pattern
of physical or verbal harassment; or makes a woman's tenancy contingent
upon sexual favors, it is a violation of Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act
of 1968.
That means sexual harassment is discrimination in housing the same
as when race is a factor in a landlord's decision to rent. With that legal
precedent, women now have a leg to stand on in courts if a super or
building owner makes sexual advances instead of building maintenance
and repair, the main order of business. When women and their children
already have the odds stacked against them in the housing market, their
vulnerability to such abuse must be minimized in every way possible.
Community and housing organizations should be clued in to the exis-
tence of harassment and incorporate an analysis of it into their work.
What it comes down to is a very simple question, according to a resident
of a women's shelter who'd been offered an apartment in exchange for .
sex: Why should we have to use our bodies to have a decent home?
Photographers: Beverly Cheuvront, Bill Goidell
Cove. photo by Beverly Cheuvront
INSIDE
FEATURES
From Eviction Resistance to Rent Control: Thnant
Activism in the Great Depression 10
The Depression linked radicals and reformers, the
poor and the middle class in a powerful alliance
that changed politics in the city. An excerpt from a
new book on tenant activism in New York City.
Unreasonable Access: Sexual Harassment Comes
Home 16
Sexual harassment of women in pursuit of homes
by landlords and superintendents is a nationwide
scandal and a new focus of civil rights actions.
DEPARTMENTS
From the Editor
Broadening Fair Housing Law ....................... 2
Neighborhood Newsstand .................................... 4
Short Term Notes
New Blows to SRO Tenants ............................ 5
Homeowner Tax Aids ..................................... 5
Victory Against Warehousing ......................... . 6
Fight for Mitchell-Lama Affordability ............... 6
Challenge Lefrak Contributions ..................... 7
Garden Redux ...................... ........................... 7
Neighborhood Notes
Bronx ................................................................ 8
Brooklyn ......... .... ............................................. 8
Manhattan ....................................................... 9
Queens ................. ; ........................................... 9
City Views
Why the Proposed 'fransit Fix Won't Work 14
Pipeline
Renovation Deal Burns Community Group 23
Wrap-around Mortgages: Buyers and Tenants
Beware ............................................................. 27
Legislation
Citizenship Checks for Public
Housing ......................................................... 24
Program Focus
Shopsteading: The City Deals a Slow Hand 28
Building Blocks
Masonry Repairs ........................................... 30
Wlrkshop ............................................................. 31
June/July 1986 CITY LIMITS 3
Transit Fix/Page 14
Harassment/Page 16
Shopsteading/Page 28
" 4 _
CITY LIMITS

June/July 1986
NEIGHBORHOOD NEWSSTAND
Auction Fever at the Times
It's too bad press releases aren't af-
fordable homes, because if they were
New York's housing catastrophe
would be solved overnight. Amid the
depressing and lame efforts that the
Koch administration calls a housing
program is a venture that has cap-
tured the imagination of thousands
of New Yorkers and its leading news-
papers.
City Housing Sales: Homesteaders Bid on Dreams
The city's auction of tax-foreclosed
buildings has become the crown
jewel of HPD, at least as far as the
public relations angle goes. A flurry
of articles in the News and the Times
around the May 5 auction reported
on the event as if the winners were
victorious Wingo players. What the
stories failed to point out is that for
the new homeowners the game of
chance was just beginning.
The Times article, headlined "City
Homesteaders Bid on Dreams," told
the story of some intrepid, colorful
New Yorkers pulling themselves out
of New York's housing crisis by their
own bootstraps. And what a story it
is, too. Meet Gerald Forestal, Haitian
taxi driver, Seventh Day Adventist.
He prayed three hours for a new
home. We observe the high drama and
color of the auction itself, as New Yor-
kers from all walks of life put lifetime
savings on the line for their shot at
home ownership. We meet the au-
ctioneer, who is compared to Rodney
Dangerfield. We learn about auction
fever through the unfortunate case of
a video store owner from Chinatown
who inexplicably bids nearly
$200,000 for a one story brick house
in Queens.
If at times the rules of the game
seem a little harsh, the program
mostly seems fair and sensible, the
perfect answer to the question anyone
who spends more than five minutes
in New York has: "Why don't they fix
up all those abandoned buildings?"
But to longtime observers of the in
rem housing wars the article itself
succumbs to auction fever. More than
halfway through the piece we learn
that 30% of the winners on auction
day never even make it to closing.
They lose their 10% deposit (the aver-
age winning bid these days is be-
tween thirty and thirty-five thousand
d ~ l l a r s ) and the building is auctioned
off again. So right off the bat we're
talking about a program where even
when you win you still might lose.
The dark side of the auction prog-
ram, however, is not just the 30% who
fail to close on their dream homes,
but the ones who get the mortgages,
apply and receive funds from various
programs, and over a period of many
months watch their dream turn into
a nightmare as their available cash
fails to meet the demand of the prop-
erty's rehabilitation. After thousands
of dollars, and thousands of hours of
work, auction winners often find
themselves broke and without the re-
quired certificate of occupancy.
Attim Sentwali, a former HPD em-
ployee, reported in the August/Sep-
tember 1985 City Limits that in his
experience those intrepid New Yor-
kers who jam the auctions are quite
convinced that there are ample funds
for rehabilitation. They are often
shocked to learn that HPD is willing
to let them purchase buildings when
they haven't got a prayer of success-
fully rehabilitating their new, bat-
tered buildings. They figure HPD
operates like a bank and won't lend
you the money if you don't measure
up. But they figure wrong. HPD's at-
titude is more like, you want to bid
on a house, bid on a house. You want
to believe we'll give you money for
rehab, dream on.
So there are a few facts the Times
story overlooked. This can easily be
rectified by a follow-up piece on the
next chapter of the story. Home-
steader getting turned down for 312
Loan Program. Homesteader paying
mortgage, real estate taxes. Home-
steader running out of money. Home-
steader, two years later, dream home
boarded up, receives letter from
HPD's Central Sales Unit. Letter says
homesteader is in default of "repair
agreement" because the building
does not have a certificate of occu-
pancy. Homesteader is now in default
of mortgage, loses home. HPD auc-
tions off the building again.
Also, if there's room the article
could investigate HPD's studied in-
difference to the myths that surround
the auction program. And maybe take
a look at what other cities have done
with their in-rem housing. DPaul
Smith.
June/July 1986 CITY LIMITS 5
SHORT TERM NOTES
NEW BLOWS TO
sROTENANTs
Residents of single-room-oc-
cupancy hotels will be more
vulnerable to evictions should
propased changes to the state
rent code be adopted this
summer, say SRO tenant
advocates.
After scrutinizing the draft of
the code, released in April, the
West Side SRO law Project
issued an analysis that finds
rights of SRO tenants severely
diminished by code provisions
that would facilitate emptying
and conversion of hotels by
owners.
"The most serious problem
with the proposed code is that
it makes it easier for hotel
landlords to deny services
without penalty,n states Hank
Perlin, of the Law Project. ':6.nd
it takes away many of the rights
of SRO residents who are in
occupancy for less than six
months."
Part of the problem, notes
Perlin, is that the code revisions
involve the merger of two
distinct codes: the rent
stabilization code for apartment
buildings and the hotel code.
Advocates for SRO residents
have always thought such a
merger would be a positive
change, elevating hotel
residents from a second-class
status. But in the process, says
Perlin, "SRO's got lost in the
shuffle."
Specifically, the revised code
offers new definitions of both a
hotel and a hotel resident that
are significantly different from
the old codes. Telephone
service, for example, has been
deleted from the array of
established services that define
a hotel. And if a hotel owner
discontinues other services-
such as maid and linen service,
furnishings and lobby staff - the
building would be reclassified
as an apartment building.
Residents would likely face rent
increases while losing estab-
lished services that for many
elderly SRO residents, are
essential.
The law Project also opposes
Over 100 housinJ! organizations joined fogether to promote a five-year, $1 billion p'lan to rehabilitate
15,000 vacant, Clty- owned apartments. Leaders of the coalition announced their pion an the steps af
City Hall. Among the supporters are Councilmembers Stanley Michels, Ruth Messinger and Abe GelJles,
Bonnie Bro_r of the Associatian for Neighborhood & Housing Development, Arthur Bames of the
Urban Coalition and Jim Webb of AFSCME local 420.
the provision that would allow
an owner to evict without cause
residents living in an SRO hotel
between 30 days and six
months. Further, only during the
first 30 days could a tenant
request a lease, in contrast to the
current code that gives
six-month residents the right to
a lease at any time.
Under the proposed code,
SRO owners could remove hotel
units from rent regulation once
vacant by renting them out on a
transient basis. Thats a frequent
practice, says Perlin, one. that
SRO hotel owners use to deny
tenants the rights and protec-
tions of permanent status.
The worst aspect of the
proposed changes, according
to SRO advocates, is that they
represent an abrupt reversal of
official postures on single-room-
occupancy housing. "The whole
thrust of city and state policy has
been to expand SRO stock and
increase tenants' rights," notes
Perlin. At present, the City
Council is considering several
bills to restrict conversion of
SRO units to co-ops or
condominiums to protect some
65,000 residents of those units.
Conversion, though, has
already removed over 100,000
SRO units from the low end of
the rental market in the past 10
years, according to a city study.
SRO advocates fear that toll
may grow higher if the rent
code changes become
law.OA.F.
HOMEOWNER
TAX AIDS
Responding to the complaints
of 17 Brooklyn officials, the city
Finance Department will put
into place four new measures
designed to aid homeowners in
paying property taxes on time.
The action follows the city's
foreclosure in that borough on
15,700 parcels, including over
9,000 residential properties
which had substantial tax
arrears.
Leading the way to improved
procedures was State Senator
Velmanette Montgomery who
saw many of her constituents
threatened with foreclosure
because they missed tax
poyments. ln a January 28 letter
to then-finance commissioner
Paul Crotty, Montgomery and
her colleagues stated that
homeawners are often
confused about exactly how
much they owe in property
taxes, especiolly if they enter
into an installment agreementto
pay back taxes. Although such
arrangements may last 12 years,
the letter noted, no bills or
reminders are ever sent and if
one payment is missed, the
homeowner risks losing his or
her home.
Changes requested by the
officials, who included State
Assemblymen James Brennan,
AI ~ n n , Roger Green and
Clarence Norman; and City
Council Members Steven
DiBrienza, Abe Gerges and Sal
A1bonese, would give taxpayers
specific, updated information
on amount of toxes due and
amount still outstanding in
installment agreements.
After three months, Crotty
released a series of changes
that would address the
problems with the tax billing
system. A new brochure
explaining the foreclosure
process will be produced; the
installment agreement will be
rewritten in clear language; a
new computer system will
6 CITY LIMITS June/July 1986
monitor agreements and notify I as the owner loses government
homeowners quarterly of subsidies, including tax
amount due; and the depart- abatements. In one Mitchell
ment will issue a coupon booklet lama building in Rochester,
to help taxpayers keep track of rents jumped 40 percent when
due dotes for their installment the owner boughtout of the
plans. program after the 20-year
Montgomery welcomed the period, note tenant leaders.
changes. "It won't completely What makes some West Side
resolve the problems, but it has Manor tenants really fume is
supplied on important missing that they only learned of the
piece that was clearly on impending change within the
administrative oversight," she post year. "My first reaction was
says. "Now people will know the anger at not knowing about it
full amount of taxes and when and concern that it could
they are due." Although the happen in less than two years,"
Finance Deportment claims that says Tom Powell, choir of the
people who are in tax arrears Buyout Committee. He learned
are notified, Montgomery insists aboutthe buyout provision from
that lock of notification is still " a a member of the citywide
big problem." Mitchell lama Tenants Coalition,
The next task, says the a two-year-old organization.
Senator, will be to press for Belanoff moved into West
speedy implementation of the Side Manor when it opened in
new procedures and, "Hope- 1968 and atthattimethe buyout
fully, when the next round of period was 35 years. later the
foreclosures happens it will be state legislature shortened the
in place." Finance Deportment time to 20 years but people
spokesperson John Dunn says moving into the building were
that if all goes well, the new never informed, she claims. She .
measures will be implemented discovered three years ago that
in three to four months.OA.F. the building would lose
regulation in 1988.
FIGHT FOR
MITCHELL LLAMA
AFFORDABILITY
A mock eviction to dramatize
the plight of residents in West
Side Manorwas recently staged
by the tenant association there.
In 1988, owner Sam leFrakwili
have the option to buyout of the
Mitchell lama subsidy program
under which the Manor was
built 20 years ago. Residents are
concerned that should leFrak
opt out of the program, which
was designed to provide middle
income housing with govern-
ment subsidies, rents will be
roised to surrounding market
levels and push many families
out.
Rents in the 247 -unit building
are set to match incomes of
$15-30,000, with a baseline
rent of $500 for a three
bedroom apartment, according
to Pot Belanoff, co-choir of the
tenant association. Those with
higher incomes pay a surcharge.
Should leFrak buy the building,
that rent structure would vanish I
The area surrounding West
Side Manor, located on West
95th Street, was much different
and less popular bock in 1968,
a fact not lost on tenants like
Belanoff. "I think of what this
area of the West Side was like
20 years ago and how it is now,"
she says. 'We chose to come
here for many reasons. We
could have chosen Queens. The
West Side become a desiroble
place because of people like us.
The area was created like a
hometown."
Powell, who has been in
residence since 1974, thinks the
Manor is a special place, worth
preserving. "It's successful
because its a diverse, happy
group/ he states. " I ~ like to stay
but the problem is financial.
Market rate rents on the Upper
West Side are too high."
The mock eviction and a
postcard-writing campaign are
port of the tenants association
strategy to draw attention to the
issue of their building and other
Mitchell lama projects.
Ultimately, they hope for a
legislative remedy. "State
Assemblyman Ed Sullivan is
trying to pass bill #3030 which
. would extend the buyout time
15 years," says Powell. "But that's
not a permanent solution and
more people would have to
fight again." The bill passed the
Assembly, but was crushed in
the Senate by upstate Republi-
cans who say, according to
Powell, "you've hod a free ride
long enough".
But Powell and other West
Side Manor tenants think LeFrak
is the one who has hod the best
ride, getting a 7.25 percent
publicly financed mortgage to
build the Manor and a
guaranteed profit of six percent
of expenses, in addition to
lucrative tax breaks. The buyout
option for LeFrak is "0 windfall
waiting to happen," states
Powell.
Residents who cannot afford
to pay more if LeFrak does what
they think he will, wonder how
many of them are the city's
future homeless. "Where does
one go?" says Belanoff. "I think
a pup tent in Central Pork is
about our potential for living in
the city."OA.F.
VICTORY AGAINST
WAREHOUSING
In what may prove to be a
landmark decision in the fight
against warehousing of
commercial properties, Housing
Court Judge Wendell J. Levister
recently ruled that the sparsely
stocked Sloan's outlet at 5 St.
James Place [In Manhattan) is
intended only to limit competi-
tion and should be evicted from
the Housing Authority-owned
site.
Levister's decision marked a
victory for Lower East Side
residents who have been
bottling Sloans for a year-and-
a-half to force the grocery chain
to open a full-service supermar-
ket in the storefront. Sloans
Supermarket Inc. operates
another grocery across the
street from 5 St. James Place.
The two locations serve some
5,000 residents of the Alfred E.
Smith projects, many of whom
are elderly and low-income.
"We believe public property
Sloan'. at 5 St. Jame. Place:
company say. "'ey're running a
supermarket, but " ' e r e ~ not a lot
on "'e she/.,e .
is not a commodity for the
exclusive use of a corporation
to use against competition," said
Victor Popa, who led the
protests with Interfaith Commu-
nity Concerns (ICC), a coalition
of lower East Side religious
groups.
"It isn't fair for Sloan's to
operate these two places at the
same time," said resident
Regalado Roman, who added
she shops there "only in on
emergency because the prices
are too high."
Sloan's, which pays $37,000
annually for the space, bought
out the lease from Key Foods in
July, 1984. Initially, the site was
kept vacant, and Sloan's
chairman Jules F. Rose said that
a grocery would not be
economically feasible at the
location because of the
competition from Sloan's other
business and a nearby Pothmark
store. After ICC members
complained to the Housing
Authority, Sloan's opened a
small grocery at 5 St. James
Place, with limited supplies and
limited hours.
"What they have is not a
supermarket," commented
Housing Authority spokesman
\til Coleman. He said the
agency brought the eviction
action "on the grounds thatthis
is a foke supermarket."
"It can hardly be argued that
Sloan's ever operated the
premises as and for a supermar-
ket," the judge ruled in his April
23 decision, adding that
evidence at the trial "clearly
indicated that Sloans never
intended to operate a supermar-
kat at the site and in fact took
the assignment to preclude the
possibility of the operation of a
supennarket by anyone else."
The judge also noted that the
lease which Sloan's took over
stipulated that a supermarket be
operated at the site.
But Gary Meyer, an attorney
far Sloan's, termed the judges
ruling "ludicrous." "There's no
provision in the lease that we
have to operate a supermarket,"
he said. Meyer also said Sloans
is not sure if it will appeal the
decision.DBeverly Cheuv-
ront
CHALLENGE
LEFRAK
CONTRIBUTIONS
Campaign contributions were
made by developer Samuel
LeFrak to Mayor Koch and
Board of Estimate members just
three days after an agreement
was signed awarding leFrak
development rights to an Upper
West Side urban renewal site,
according to information
gathered by community activists.
On December 3, 1984, the
city signed an out of court
stipulation to settle a dispute
with LeFrak over development
rights to Site 300, on Columbus
.twenue. Board of Elections
records show that on December
7, $10,000 in campaign
contributions were made by
LeFrak organizations with
names like Dakota, Oak, Surf,
Ocean and Princeton, to Mayor
Koch, Andrew Stein, Harrison
Goldin and the late Donald
Manes. All had votes on the
Board of Estimate, which must
approve or rejed developement
proposals.
Private development of the
site has been challenged by
community advocates at
Strykers Bay Neighborhood
Council far years. They currently
have a law suit pending against
the city that contests the
stipulation because of dis-
crepancies in the Uniform Land
Use Review Procedure to which
the LeFrak development plan
was submitted. Says Strykers
Bay director Nicole Levin, "The
June/July 1986 CITY LIMITS 7
Rob.rt Caball.ro. co-chair of the Low.r East Sid. Joint Planning Council.
add ... s crowd at the opening of the Lo_r East Sid. Peopl.. C ... dit
Union on Avenu. Band Tliird St .... t. Th. o ~ n i n g culminat.d a two year
struggl. with Manufactur.r. Hanover Trust aft.r the bank d.cid.d to clo
it. branch at the sit . Th. bank agr d tOlive the c ... dit union a th .... -year.
... nt-fr lease and d.po.it $100.000 for 1 month. in a no- int ..... t account.
Community r id.nts. bu.iness.s and non-profit groups have pl.dg.d
$900.000 in d.po.it .
ULURP procedure was a joke.
The city signed off on it before
the Board of Estimate gave
approval." The information
about the leFrak contributions
was only recently uncovered by
Levin and her colleagues and is
not part of their court challenge.
But their suit does allege that
Mayor Koch benefited directly
from the disposition of six other
urban renewal sites on
Columbus Avenue into the
hands of developers leFrak,
Peter Josephs and others who
contributed to his reelection
fund. levin states that Koch
illegally obtained a sign-off
from federal Housing and
Urban Development head
Samuel Pierce in 1982 by
misrepresenting the completion
of required developments on
those sites. "Subsequent to the
sign-off," states levin, "all site
requirements changed to
80-20, to condos; relocation of
residents was no longer
required."
Mike Webber, at State
Senator Franz Leichter's office,
has been tracking campaign
contributions from developers
and he sees a real problem with
the leFrak deal. "The city's
caving in to leFrak's demands in
court that he be allowed to
develop t h ~ site was clearfy
motivated by some other
considerations besides the legal
merits of the case." says
Webber. 'We believe campaign
contributions made by leFrak
organizations came at what
seems like 'appropriate
moments'."DA.F.
GARDEN REDUX
In cities throughout the worfd,
residents point proudly to the
buildings that have been the site
of public events for decades, if
not centuries. But in Manhattan,
old buildings are often just in the
way. And in the case of Madison
Square Garden, the building
has barely had time to age. Gulf
& Western, the conglomerate
which owns the Garden, is
planning to tear it down after
just 18 years of use. The
company wants to build a new
Garden several blocks
away-the fifth Garden
incarnation in little over a
century.
City Councilmember Ruth
Messinger calls Gulf & Westerns
plan "New Yorks edifice
complex run amoclc." The
company believes the current
Garden location at 33 Street
and Seventh Avenue could be
much more profitably used as
retail and office space, and is
proposing a $1 billion
multi-tower complex for the site.
The new Garden will be built
one block from the Convention
Center.
Gulf & Western has com-
plained that the current Garden
was poorfy designed and
cannot be run profitably. But
profits have been a problem for
all the Madison Square
Gardens, and the company
knew this when it bought the
building in 1977. In 1982 the
company threatened to move
the Knicks and Rangers, who
play atthe Garden and are also
owned by Gulf & Western, to
New Jersey, opening the site up
for redevelopment. The city
jumped in, giving the company
a $5.1 million per year tax
abotement for ten years. This
ensured that the teams and the
Garden would remain intact
through 1992.
But Gulf & Western couldn't
have pulled off the redevelop-
ment plan then becuase it didn't
own the land the Garden sits
on - just the air rights. The
company bought the land from
Penn Central in 1984 for $33
million.
Messinger is particularfy
incensed over the tax giveaways
that will now be handed to Gulf
& Western for the new projects .
But Carf Faltar, a spokesman for
Gulf & Western, says any such
tax abatements are still
undecided. "There are a lot of
variables that have to fall into
place."
The new Garden will include
a l,500-car garage, which
Messinger believes will
exacerbate traffic and pollution
problems in the Clinton area.
She is also disturbed by the
concentration of major projects
in the neighborhood, resulting
in displacement of residents and
small businesses. "We can
always provide new high rise
bread and circuses," soys
Messinger. "We can almost
never proted existing commer-
cial and residential tenants, plan
for the organic development of
neighborhoods, or realize a fair
return on taxes from develop-
ment plums we hand out to
wealthy corporations."DD. T.
8 CITY LIMITS June/July 1986
NEIGHBOR
NOTES
- ---
The Bronx
Rampant Evictions
A recent report on the state of the
Bronx by its fearless leader, Stanley
Simon, indicated that the borough
was "bouncing back" with new hous-
ing construction and rehabilitation
efforts. This good-news report left
some questions unanswered about
the protection of Bronx tenants from
their landlords and judges.
Question 1: Why was police officer
Stephen Sullivan cleared of all
charges in the eviction/murder case
of Eleanor Bumpurs, a public hous-
ing tenant in Sedgewick Houses of
the West Bronx? A late March deci-
sion by the Appellate Division of the
State Supreme Court has now estab-
lished that no one person, agency or
institution can be held accountable
for the 'pay-or-die' approach that city
agencies took to circumvent Bum-
purs' rights of due process in an evic-
tion.
Question 2: Why have nearly 50
percent of all evictions in the Bronx
over the last couple of years been con-
centrated in the West Bronx neighbor-
hood in which the late Eleanor Bum-
purs lived? According to Brent Shar-
man, a tenant organizer with the
Neighborhood Stabilization Program,
residents in the Highbridge and Mor-
ris Heights neighborhoods accounted
for over 50 percent of all tenants ap-
pearing in the Bronx Housing Court
through the winter of 1986.
Based on a 1985-86 survey con-
ducted by the Bronx Task Force on
Housing Court as well as 1982 and '
1984 reports on that court by the de-
partment of Housing Preservation
and Development and the Advisory
Council on Housing Court, the num-
bers are staggering for the Bronx in
general. In a borough with 300,000
rental units, nearly 100,000 court ac-
tions were issued. That's one for every
three apartments in 1984 and the fi-
gures have not changed much. Of
those, 90 percent represent dispos-
sess actions started by the landlord,
while less than 10 percent are tenant
initiated actions. Tenants have been
on the defensive for the life of the
Housing Court, which was created in
1973 to enforce the housing code.
Nine Bronx judges with salaries of
$66,000 that help them ease their
housing needs, are the arbiters of
these cases and define the court vic-
timization of tenants as a fault of un-
substantial legislation. Sharman says
the laws are on the books but most
judges do not challenge landlords.
The issues? Reforms of Housing
Court organization and procedures so
that due process and building code
enforcement become prevailing fac-
tors in judges' decisions. The rehabili-
tation of vacant, city-owned build-
ings so that more decent housing is
made available and affordable to
people in the Bronx.oAngel Garcia
Brooklyn
Tenants Put the Heat
on Slum'lord
On Monday, April 7th, a demonst-
ration at Brooklyn Housing Court
called for the arrest of slumlord
Leonard Spodek. .Ten days later, he
was arrested at that same spot.
Spodek's arrest, under cir-
cumstances which remain unclear,
was celebrated as the first victory for
the group which had organized the
demonstration, the newly-formed Co-
alition Against Spodeks' nicks ,
(CAST). They plan to make sure it is
not their last.
The formation of CAST is a major
turning point in the long-running bat-
tle for justice for tenants of Spodek
buildings. Leonard and Irving
Spodek own over 40 buildings under
some 15 different names. The state
Attorney General has had a case
against the brothers since 1980 stem-
ming from illegal rent overcharges,
falsified rental histories and failure
to maintain the buildings. The De-
partment of State and the Concilia-
tion and Appeals Board also con-
ducted investigations, resulting in or-
ders to return over $750,000 in illegal
brokers' fees. But tenants say they
have seen little relief.
"The Attorney General's office let
him walk away with the store," says
Al Fitelson, a tenant at 985 Ocean
Avenue who first brought the case to
them eight years ago. "They had a
case as big as the Manhattan Yellow
Pages and now it is down to 17 pages."
Fitelson and Keith Brooks, from Flat-
bush East Community Development
Council, began organizing CAST this
March in an attempt to reverse that
trend.
"The Supreme Court Order had no
teeth," says Brooks of the 1981 order
resulting from the AG's case. "It was
meaningless unless the tenants were
organized. " At the time, only a hand-
ful of the affected buildings had ten-
ant associations, aided by Flatbush
Tenants Council. Even for those
buildings relief was not forthcoming.
Fitelson blames that on Housing
Court. Spodek and his attorneys, he
feels, were given privileges that ten-
ants in the cases were denied. Worse,
all of the cases were being heard by
different judges, isolating tenants.
On any given day in Brooklyn
Housing Court there may be as many
as 16 different Spodek cases being
heard. One Monday in December, ten-
ants from eight Spodek buildings
were responding to dispossess papers
while across the way in Supreme
Court another tenant association was
doing battle. None were aware of their
fellow Spodek tenants on that morn- ,
ing. Brooks and Franz Dupey of Flat-
bush Development Corporation de-
cided to bring all of these tenants to-
gether. They teamed up to leaflet over
40 buildings with thousands of invi-
tations to their first meeting. CAST
now has over 200 members from 33
Spodek properties.
Already they've met with the Attor-
ney General's office to l evive the case ,
and with Borough Preside:}t Golden's
office to get his help. They have ap-
pointments with District Attorney
Holtzman and HPD Litigation. The
demonstration drew 75 tenants and
good press coverage. At the AG's ten-
ants were told CAST may be the '
catalyst to finally bring the tenants
their ~ u e .
So far no overcharges have been re-
turned to the tenants, (estimates have
run as high as $10 million), and the
buildings are still in disrepair.
Spodek was released the same day he
was arrested. "But," says Brooks, "the
heat is on."
And not just on Leonard and Irving
Spodek. CAST is calling for an all-out
investigation of Housing Court as
well.DDavid J. Dower
Manhattan
. Neighborhood Alert
In a recent issue of a magazine de-
voted to co-op or condo fortune hun-
ters, 40 leading real estate brokers
chose Manhattan neighborhoods
they "appreciated the most." This ap-
preciation, however, has little to do
with the people in those neighbor-
hoods, the amenities or even the ar-
chitecture. In labeling of neighbor-
hoods as "hot," appreciation has to
do with an increase in property
values through the next year.
against harassment, eviction and
speculation without building im-
provement for the residents.
Lead Paint Danger
The Washington Heights Inwood
Coalition dubbed Mayas the kick-off
month for its Lead Poisoning Educa-
tional and Awareness Campaign.
Lynn Shields, coordinator of the pro-
ject, says the Washington Heights area
has one of the highest levels of lead
poisoning in the city. Lead paint was
used extensively in buildings built
before 1960. "Eighty-five percent of
the buildings in this neighborhood
were built before 1947," says Shields.
The Campaign is intended to alert
parents of the problem of lead poison-
ing and inform them of preventive
m e a s ~ s . Workshops were con-
ducted throughout local schools to
train children in 6th, 7th and 8th
grades on the early warning signs and
ways in which they could reduce the
risk to younger children in their
building. Some 15,000 fliers in
Spanish and English were distributed
throughout the community. The cam-
paign also encourages parents to take
their children to local health centers
where free tests are provided by the
city. OMary Breen
Queens
Here, presented as a warning
against the displacement and harass-
ment that has become so com-
monplace in "hot" neighborhoods,
are a few choice selections and quotes
from the group: "Upper East Side
above 96th Street - in the next five
years things will be happening
here. "-L. B. Kaye Associates; "Car-
negie Hill is attracting yuppies. It is
a good investment. "-Charles H.
Greenthal Co.; "Upper West Side- False Promises
we haven't come to the end. "-Hann Back in 1980, landlord Michael Par-
& Mann; "Bowery, Clinton - both are tridge promised tenants in his five
very accessible to transportation."- Jamaica buildings renovations and
Kanelba & Robilotti; "West 50's, West improvements including new heating
60's-a lot of new projects are being systems, wiring, elevators, windows,
planned for there. They will go up kitchens and bathrooms. He secured
quicker than in other areas of the $1.1 million in loans from the Jamaica
city. "-J. I. Sopher; "Chelsea-it's Apartment Improvement Program
coming along. People used to be snob- and HPD and began work. April 1 of
bish about it, but it's becoming more this year, tenants at 88-24 Merrick
popular, according to my brokers."- Blvd., one of the five buildings, went
Dwelling Sales; "Lower East Side- on rent strike.
in the East Village and Alphabet Why? Evelyn Kramer, tenant leader
Land where major renovations are says the problems are many and the
going on."-Bernard-,Charles Co. tenants are just plain furious. Se-
In summary, the article advises ap- curity in the building is poor despite .
preciation watchers "to keep their a fancy closed circuit camera system
eyes on the Upper West Side above . that causes grainy reception on ten-
90 Street, the Upper East Side above ants' TVs. Unwanted loiterers get into
96 Street, the Lower East Side and the building, admitted by suspected
Clinton (West 40's and 50's) for the prostitutes operating out of one or
fastest rise in values." This should more apartments. Three women were
also serve as a "tenants' guide" mugged in the building, prompting
June/July 1986 e CITY LIMITS e 9
the tenants to start a tenant patrol that
sits at the front door and asks visitors
to sign in.
The promised elevator never
materialized and the current one has
been out of service for long periods
of time. Its unreliability causes other
worries-the elevator provides the
only entrance and exit to the base-
ment. Kramer recently rescued a ten-
ant who had gone down to do laundry
and found herself trapped when the
. elevator stopped at an upper floor
and Kramer had to climb floor to floor
in order to find and send it back down
to the basement.
Tenants are also angered by the
poor quality of the renovations that
were done. Many of the new windows
do not work properly and the new
cabinetry in the kitchens and bath-
rooms were installed in a shoddy
manner.
Tenants are even angrier about "the
rent restructuring" by HPD. Told that
rents might go up to about $288 a
month for a one bedroom apartment,
they in fact climbed to $433 a month.
And what of Partridge's other ten-
ants? They aren't happy either, and
have formed a coalition with those at
88-24 Merrick Blvd. Partridge also
owns the old Macy's building, now
the Colosseum, where space is rented
out to vendors. His residential ten-
ants suspect that their HPD-increased
rent money is subsidizing Partridge's
operation at the Colosseum. Mean-
while, the rent strike goes on and Par-
tridge has issued dispossess notices
to the tenants. Thirty-five out of 78
units have joined the rent strike, and
. the number is expected to grow. On
May 8, HPD inspectors issued 70 vio-
lations for the building.
Senior Housing
OrgaIiizers and community leaders
concerned with housing issues that
effect the elderly are invited to a spec-
ial conference to be held at Forest
Hills Community House, 108-25
62nd Drive, Forest Hills, on Sunday
June 29. Topics include harassment,
MCIs, co-op conversions, special
legislation and entitlements and
much more. Literature will be made
available and staff will assist elderly
participants with the filing of forms.
For more information call Judy
Zangwill at (718) 5.92-5757.oIrma
Rodriguez
10 CITY LIMITS Jun.! July 1986
FEATURE
From Eviction Resistance
to Rent Control:
Tenant Activism in the
Great Depression
~ e Depression heralded a
~ new age for tenant activism and
changed the face of the city's political
landscape. But many of the same issues are
still debated today.
BY MARK NAISON
U
nder the press of Depression
conditions, the terms of
debate in housing policy
shifted dramatically. For the first time
in American history, a broad based
housing coalition developed that em-
phasized aggressive government inter-
vention into the private housing mar-
ket. "Private capital," Works Project
Administration head Harry Hopkins
told a crowd at the opening of First
Houses, New York's first public hous-
ing project, "has never spent a dime
to build a house for the poor person."
Settlement houses joined with left-led
tenants' organizations to lobby for
code enforcement, rent control, and
the construction of public housing,
while liberal public officials endorsed
tenant protests as needed catalysts for
reform.
Tenant organizations displayed
some new aspects which were to be-
come permanent features of the city's
political landscape. First of all, black
tenants organizations became influ-
ential actors in the city's tenants move-
ment and housing reform coalition.
Alongside the Jewish community,
~ l a c k s emerged as a solid ethnic base
for tenant activism. Secondly, the
radicalization of Depression-era pro-
fessionals inspired a new form of
citywide tenants federation. Forming
coalitions with grass roots tenants or-
ganizations in the city's ethnic neigh-
borhoods, middle class tenant advo-
cates -lawyers, public relations ex-
perts, architects and the like--<:reated
a set of strategies and a style of organiz-
ing that has survived, with some mod-
ification, to the present day.
Harlem Thnants League
The first harbinger of the new tenant
activism came nearly a year before the
Depression struck. In February of 1928,
a black Communist named Richard
Moore turned a quiet meeting of the
Washington Heights Tenants League
into an impassioned protest against
the expiration of the city's Emergency
Rent Laws on Harlem's population.
Pointing out that blacks were penned
in their neighborhoods by rigid segre-
gation and lacked bargaining power
with their landlords, he warned that
the expiration of controls on apart-
ments would provoke a wave of rent
increases in Harlem.
Spurred by a series in the Daily
Worker documenting the hardship of
Harlem tenants, the League claimed
that Harlem church and real estate con-
cerns which owned or managed Har-
lem property profited from segrega-
tion's toll on the black working class.
Many of the buildings the League or-
ganized were owned by black churches
and landlords. Every important Har-
lem politician, and both Harlem news-
papers, lobbied for the preservation of
rent controls, pointing out that blacks
of all classes faced unfair rents because
of segregation in housing. When the
city's Board of Alderman, in June of
1929, passed an ordinance preserving
rent controls, it was partially in re-
sponse to the pressure of black elected
officials. Nevertheless,the ordinance
was soon declared unconstitutional on
the grounds that the city had intruded
on matters of state concern.
The Harlem Tenants League and Har-
lem's political leadership both took ac-
tion once the city's rent control ordi-
nance was struck down. For the Ten-
ants League, the preferred tactic was a
"Harlem-wide rent strike." Simultane-
ously, Harlem political leaders used
their influence in Albany to propose
legislative remedies for the special
problems of black tenants. The passage
of the Perkins and Rivers Bills, which
afforded some tenant protection from
rent gouging, demonstrated the grow-
ing importance of black political lead-
ers in the struggle for housing reform,
and the recognition by the political
leadership of the state that black ten-
ants had special problems in their
quest for safe, affordable housing.
Communists Take the Lead
The protest meetings of the Harlem
Tenants League and the legislative ef-
forts of Harlem's elected officials rep-
resented efforts to remedy the special
problems confronting blacks in the
housing market. But the Depression,
which hit the city and the nation with
shocking rapidity, changed the context
in which all discussion of housing is-
sues took place and the basic texture
of landlord-tenant relations.
The rapid spread of unemployment
undermined the capacity of most ten-
ants to pay pre-Depression rents, and
some tenants to pay any rents at all.
The loss of rental income made it dif-
Racism I.ft blacks with few choic.s of wh ... to Ii.,.: .
Th. Har/.", Leagu. claim.d b/acle church altd real .stote coltc.ms profited from segregatiOlt.
ficult for many landlords, especially
marginal operators, to meet their
mortgage bills, insurance payments
and utility costs, causing some to relin-
quish their properties and others to re-
duce maintenance. The private con-
struction industry, which had boomed
during the 1920's, became instantly un-
profitable, even for luxury buildings.
Hundreds of thousands of people
left their apartments for smaller ones,
fell into the status of lodgers, or be-
came part of the army of homeless that
slept on the streets, moved into
"Hoovervilles," or rode the rails.
None of the tenants organizations
that had been active in the 1920's de-
veloped strategies to organize tenants
in this crisis. But the Communist Party
literally leaped onto the barricades as
soon as the Depression struck, de-
manding that federal, state and city
governments provide direct aid to the
unemployed, and organizing marches,
rallies and disruption of government
agencies to reinforce their demands.
By the fall of 1930, Communist-led
Unemployed Councils had begun to ex-
periment with two tactics which had
a direct impact on the housing mar-
ket-eviction resistance and rent
strikes. Eviction resistance proved to
be one of the most effective weapons
in the Party's arsenal. Coming upon
instances where tenants had been for-
cibly evicted, Communist organizers
would move furniture back into the
apartment, appealing to neighbors and
passersby to resist marsballs and
police if evictions were repeated.
Since many marshalls and police were
reluctant to evict, the actions often
bought time for beleagured tenants and
gave Communists new found respect.
Rent strikes proved more difficult to
organize and did not spread rapidly.
But they posed an implicit threat to
private ownership of housing.
Battle of the Bronx
The great rent strike war of 1932
began in a quiet section of the Bronx
just east of Bronx Park. By an accident
of geography and sociology, this neigh-
borhood contained one of the largest
concentrations of Communists in New
York City. In early January of 1932, the
Upper Bronx Unemployed Council un-
veiled rent strikes at three large apart-
ment buildings. In each building the
majority of tenants agreed to withhold
their rent and began picketing their
buildings to demand 15 percent reduc-
tions in rent, an end to evictions, re-
pairs in apartments, and recognition
of the tenants committee as an official
bargaining agent.
Landlords moved quickly to dispos-
sess the strike leaders, and judges read-
ily granted-the eviction notices. But
June/July 1986 CITY LIMITS 11
the first set of evictions set off a "rent
riot" with over 4,000 participants. A
similar outbreak occurred with the at-
tempted evictions at another building.
Bronx property owners moved
quickly to try to contain the move-
ment. First they tried arbitration, with
landlords offering to show the strike
leaders their books to prove the de-
mands would mean operating the
buildings at a loss. But the strike lead-
ers contemptuously rejected the offer.
"When times were good," declared
Max Kaimowitz, "the landlords didn't
offer to share their profits with us. The
landlords made enough money off us
when we had it. Now that we haven't
got it, the landlords must be satisfied
with less."
Faced with such strident opposi-
tion, the landlords formed rent strike
committees which offered unlimited
Fio .. llo H. laGuardia, mayor from 1934 to 1945:
H. ros. to pow.r tftrough tft. city's reform move-
m.ltt.
funding and legal support for any land-
lord facing a Communist-led rent
strike. This landlord mobilization,
combined with their considerable
political influence and legal expertise,
broke the back of some of the strikes.
Nonetheless, during the winter of
1932-33 a new wave of strikes ensued
at several hundred buildings, leading
one landlord to lament, "The entire
Bronx is on fire." The landlords once
again prevailed, this time by pressuring
Corporation Counsel Edward Hilly to
declare picketing at buildings on rent
strike illegal.
Stymied in their effort to sustain a
massive rent revolt (partly by effec-
tive repression, partly because land-
lords could not profitably make con-
12 CITY LIMITS June/July 1986
cessions), Communist organizers
switched tactics to pressuring the
city's Home Relief Bureau. They
found the city government quite
amenable to collective pressure be-
cause of new funds made available
from the Roosevelt administration
and because of a political climate in-
creasingly receptive to government
aid to the unemployed.
Rise of the Reformers
The decline of the Communist-led
rent strikes left something of a vac-
uum in grass roots tenants activism.
Nevertheless, the years 1933 and 1934
saw the emergence of a powerful
housing reform coalition in New York
City, rooted in settlement houses and
philanthropic organizations, and
with a significant base in the admin-
istration of the newly-elected mayor,
Fiorello LaGuardia. Reformers lob-
bied for the construction of low-rent
public housing and the improvement
of health and living conditions in the
city's slums. Langdon Post, commis-
sioner of the Tenement House Depart-
ment, forced thousands of slum own-
ers to upgrade conditions of their
buildings. Post was also convinced
that government sponsored housing
was the only permanent solution to
the housing needs of the poor, though
the actual rate of construction of pub-
lic housing fell short of his hopes. By
the time a grass roots tenants move-
ment did reemerge, the reformers rep-
resented a formidable ally, offering
tenant leaders office space, funds and
help with lobbying on issues of com-
mon concern.
During the summer and fall of
1934, two rent strike movements
erupted which were to have lasting I
impact on organized tenants activity
in New York. The first of these,
launched among middle class blacks
in Harlem's "Sugar Hill", led to the
formation of the Consolidated Ten-
ants League; the second, among ten-
ants of Knickerbocker Village on the
Lower East Side, produced the Knick-
erbocker Village Tenants Association.
Both strikes achieved success em-
ploying sophisticated legal and pub-
lic relations strategies disdained by
early-Depression Communists, and
openly welcomed the help of housing
reformers inside and outside the gov-
ernment. Each movement generated
tenant organizations of great perma-
nence and strength, the leadership of
Th. D.pre ion .lM'lIed the collap of the hou.ing indu.try:
Many tenants couldn't ~ y rent, many land/ordsfail.d to m ttft.ir mortgag.s and housing construc-
tion cam. to a standstill.
which played key roles in the rebirth
of a citywide tenants movement.
The activities of Consolidated and
Knickerbocker paved the way for the
formation of the Citywide Tenants
League in 1936. marking an impor-
tant step in tenant activism. Initially
created as a general membership or-
ganization, Citywide soon changed
its structure to a federation of self-
governing neighborhood tenants as-
sociations. The function of the cen-
tral office was to develop legal and
legislative strategy, coordinate fun-
draising and public relations and
conduct an educational program on
housing issues for organized tenants
and the entire "progressive" commu-
nity.
In December 1936, two crises
erupted in low income neighbor-
hoods which dramatized the salience
of Citywide'S strategy and helped put
the organization on the map. The first
took place among 600 families living
in tenements that had been con-
demned by the city to make way for
the South Bronx approach to the
Triborough Bridge. To hasten their de-
parture. officials responsible for the
bridge construction stopped provid-
ing services in the tenements and an-
nounced their demolition just two
weeks before Christmas. Under the di-
rection of Citywide. neighborhood re-
sidents began conducting picket
lines at City Hall. sending delega-
tions to relief officials and sympathe-
tic legislators and holding mass meet-
ings in the community to which the
press was invited. The campaign em-
barrassed city officials and won
major concessions including a stay of
demolition, the restoration of build-
ing services. the granting of
emergency food. clothing and medi-
cal care and the payment of moving
expenses.
Jun./ July 1986 CITY LIMITS 13
"Private capital," declared WPA boss Harry Hopkins, "has
never spent a dime to build a house for the poor person."
Less than a week after the Bronx
crisis began. a group of savings banks
owning property on the Lower East
Side decided to board up their tene-
ments rather than comply with new
building codes. Over 700 families on
the Lower East Side-along with an
unknown number of others in-poorer
neighborhoods - received eviction
notices. giving them one month to
find new quarters in the dead of
winter. Under pressure from housing
reform leaders. the mayor ordered
hearings on the evictions. Citywide
leaders used the hearings to present
a "Tenants Housing Program" which
offered ' solutions to the immediate
problem and suggested long term re-
medies for low income tenants. The
hearings helped forge ties with low
income groups. giving Citywide a
legitimate claim to representing the
interest of slum tenants even though
much of the leadership at the central
office was middle class.
The style of organizing Citywide
employed. both from its central office
and its neighborhood leagues. was a
shrewd combination of mass protest
tactics and legal representation. Un-
like tenant organizers in the early
1930s. Citywide organizers em-
played mass picketing and rent with-
holding only after other strategies
failed and only when they had strong
assurances that tenants would not be
penalized for their use. By 1940,
Citywide claimed more than 20 af-
filiates in city neighborhoods and
public housing developments and
helped publicize effective methods of
tenant advocacy to scores of left-wing
union and neighbdrhood organiza-
tions.
WarTime
The coming of World War II had an
unsettling effect on the organized ten-
ants movement in the city, particu-
larly for Citywide. Their advocacy of
tenant issues inevitably became
fused with the task of mobilizing the
civilian population to provide sup-
port for the armed forces and to serve
as monitors against "profiteering" in
the consumer economy. By 1943,
ptywide, renamed the United Ten-
ants League in deference to the "Win
the War" spirit, had become a much
smaller organization. The banner of
tenant advocacy was picked up by
American Labor Party clubs, civil
rights organizations, neighborhood
consumer councils and trade unions.
Concentrating on two main issues, -
rent levels and evictions, they helped
engineer one of the most far reaching
victories in the history of the New
York tenants movement: the imposi-
tion by the Office of Price Administra-
-tion of a system of war time rent con-
trols covering all of the city.
The imposition of controls, and the
manner in which they were done,
proved to be a watershed in housing
policy in New York City. Long part of
the agenda of the organized tenants
movement, rent control came not be-
cause that movement had accumu-
lated new organizational strength,
but because tenant work and tenant
issues had been adopted by a wide
range of other groups.
After the war, even in very different
economic settings, controls would
prove to be very difficult to reverse.
Tenant activism, expressing itself
through numerous forms, had
emerged as a permanent force in the
political life of the city.o
This article is excerpted from The
Tenant Movement in New York City,
1904-1984, edited by Ronald Lawson.
The book will be published by Rut-
gers University Press.
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14 CITY LIMITS June! July 1986
",- t
CITY VIEWS
Why the Proposed Transit Fix' Won't Work.
BY PRESCOTT LANDIS
WHEN BUS AND SUBWAY FARES
rose to a dollar last year it marked
the end of an era. You no longer buy
a token with loose change; it costs a
dollar. The difference is subtle, but
not without consequence. A dollar
bill is "real money" and when you
pay with real money you expect
something in return.
Not so subtle is the reason the fare
increased. 1fansit Authority operat-
ing costs remained fairly stable over
the past few years. What increased
dramatically was debt service, princi-
ple and interest on bonds sold to pay
for capital improvements.
These costs tripled from $32 mil-
lion in 1984 to almost $100 million
in 1986. Nearly half of the TA's pro-
jected $235 million 1986 operating
deficit is due to debt service pay-
ments. And these costs will grow.
Total debt service payments, consi-
dered operating expenses and paid .
for from fare revenue, will be $1.2 bill-
ion between 1986 and 1993.
This means the cost of a ride could
go to $1.50 in 1987 to pay for improve-
ments that haven't happened yet. The
TA bought new trains and there were
fewer derailments in 1985 than 1984,
but service is pretty much the same.
You are as likely as ever to be delayed
or inconvenienced.
And there is widespread agreement
that the capital program has been
poorly managed. It will cost $350 mil-
lion more than anticipated. David
Gunn, the "new" TA president, may
do better than his predecessors, but
this remains to be seen.
Out of Time, Out of Money
Not only was the program poorly
managed, but it's far from complete
and runs out of money this year. After
that, new money must be found. The
1982-1986 capital program was
funded by MTA and 1fiborough
Bridge and Thnnel Authority bonds
and about $3 billion in federal, state
and city subsidies. It is undesirable,
though, to sell more bonds because
this ultimately will raise fares, and
federal subsidies are declining.
Thus, the TA faces a two-pronged
predicament. It ran out of money less
than a third of the way through its
urgently needed capital rebuilding
program and must raise more. It can-
not sell more bonds to do this, how-
ever, because the effect of the bonds
it sold so far is already beiI),g felt at
the turnstile.
This is why a subcommittee of the
Governor's Council on Fiscal and
Economic Priorities in December
1985 proposed a transit financial con-
trol board to help prevent what its
chair Felix Rohatyn, called "a finan-
cial crisis at least as severe and
perhaps worse than the great crisis of
1975." Modeled after the city's Finan-
cial Control Board (FCB) of that
period, the transit FCB would be re-
sponsible for approving the MTA
budget and other major financial ac-
tions.
The Gubernatorial panel-Roha-
tyn, former MTA chair Richard
Ravitch, Amsterdam News chair Will-
iam Tatum, Orange and Rockland
Utilities chairman James Smith, and
Eugene Keiler of Lazard Freres,
Inc. - proposed the Board because it
wants to use $1 billion in Municipal
Assistance Corporation (MAC) funds
to pay for part of the future capital
program and the TA cannot be en-
trusted with a billion dollars in city
money without some way to ensure
it will be well spent. Such an arrange-
ment would provide about 10 percent
of the $10 billion needed over the
next 15 years.
The transit FCB would make sure
that numbers add up and the budget
is , which will comfort bon-
dholders but do little for straphan-
gers. Returning the transit system to
long-term good health depends on
improving service to increase rider-
ship and strengthening the revenue
base.
The TA:s biggest problem, though,
has been poor management and a
FCB won't solve that. When Ravitch
put together the funding package for
the current five-year capital program,
he said the $300 million spent annu-
ally between 1975 and 1980 was "far
too little to do the job." But he didn't
, mention that from 1971 to 1975 the
TA spent twice as much on new
routes as on the existing system.
All told, the TA has spent over $800
million in the past 15 years on the
63rd Street, Southeast Queens, and
Second Avenue Lines, none of which
has carried a single passenger. With
insufficient funds during the 1970s
to meet all of the existing system's
needs, dedicating scarce money to
new routes is hard to justify.
During the 1970s, the TA also had
trouble spending what little money
it did have. It received $1.4 billion in
federal funds from 1971 to 1978, but
by 1978 contracts for less than half
this sum were signed. This is why
Ravitch tried to speed construction.
He did streamline the process, but
the TA still has problems turning dol-
lars into improvements.
A 1985 study by State Comptroller
Ned Regan found that: "In 1982, the
first year of the five-year program, the
TA issued over $2.3 billion in capital
commitments (Le. contracts for $2.3
billion were signed) , some 40 percent
of the TA commitments planned for
the entire five-year program. This ef-
fort, involving a few large contracts
to purchase new subway cars and
buses, placed a relatively small ad-
ministrative burden on the TA. Begin-
ning in 1983, however, the .. . TA:s cap-
ital program has fallen into serious
trouble. This is evidenced by a ... 48
percent shortfall in commitments in
1983 and a 69 percent shortfall in
1984 .. . "
The program was in such disarray
in 1984 when David Gunn assumed
the presidency that he halted as
much capital construction as possi-
ble while he reorganized the prog-
June/July 1986 e CITY LIMITS e 15
ram. After scarcity in the seventies,
there was so much money in the
eighties the TA didn't know what to
do with it.
The real problem in the past decade
has been an erratic cash flow. During
lean times, planning and engineering
staffs shrunk. When money became
available again, though, the
mechanisms to spend it well were no
longer there. Too few engineers and
no capital pipeline paralyzed efforts
to renew construction in 1982.
The proposed transit FCB is an in-
appropriate solution to what ails the
'Iransit Authority. The city FCB was
created to reassure potential inves-
tors the city would not go bankrupt
and default on MAC bonds. But in
the case of the TA, selling bonds to
finance future construction is coun-
terproductive due to its impact on
fares. What is needed is predictable
long-term capital funding to allow
the system to gear up to meet its cap-
ital needs in terms of planning and
engineering capabilities. This means
permanent taxes for mass transit from
federal and state governments. Given
the current political aversion to taxa-
tion, it will ,be,!l. ,difficult task.
Perhaps some MAC funds, West-
way trade-in funds , and other short-
term remedies can be tapped for the
immediate future. Over the long haul,
though, we need to establish a steady,
permanent capital funding stream for
transportation. The crazy quilt of
bonds and temporary taxes that paid
for the current five-year capital prog-
ram just won't work again.O
Prescott Landis is a freelance writer
and observer of the 'Ihmsit Authority.
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16 CITY LIMITS Junel July 1986
FEATURE
Unreasonable Access
Sexual
Harassment
Comes
Home
BY ANNETTE FUENTES
AND MADELYN MILLER
(Continued from cover)
His sexual advances got nowhere
with Aisha. But her rejection only set
the landlord off on a campaign of
fear. He shut off the electric, refuses
her rent checks, follows her in the
neighborhood and harasses her
eight lear-old daughter. Says a
frien , "She's breaking down as a per-
son. She feels like she's not worth any-
thing. She's at the point where she
could get a job and get off public as-
sistance, but this is making her feel
bad about herself."
The super in Jodie Gould's building
favors young, single women, tells
them how lonely he is since his wife
left. He carne to her apartment to
change a light bulb and picked up a
kitchen knife. "What would you do
if you were raped?" he asked her.
"Would you fight or would you give
in?"
He launched into a story about
rape as she backed away. Perched on
a ladder, he looked down at her grow-
ing anxiety. 'J\re you frightened?" he
quizzed her. She was terrified but
managed to say no, that they were
friends after all. Bulb changed, game
over, he left and she vowed never to
be alone with him again; let the re-
pairs go begging.
B
ylaw, landlords and their agents
are entitled to reasonable access
to the apartments they rent.
But this six-month investigation by
City Limits has uncovered a serious
nationwide problem of patently il-
legal and health-threatening inci-
C
ountless women face the unwanted and
often threatening sexual advances of
men who have the power to grant or deny
housing and repairs in what is the latest
wrinkle to the nationwide crisis in housing
and female poverty and the newest focus
of fair housing law.
dents of sexual harassment by land-
lords, superintendents and others
with access to women's homes that
is anything but reasonable.
Quantifying the magnitude of sex-
ual harassment is difficult. Silence
born of fear and powerlessness stifles
reports from victims. All those sur-
veyed were unanimous in the belief
that the incidence of harassment is
enormous and not incidentally tied
to the growing housing shortage.
Three years after her unforgettable in-
cident, Jodie Gould polled 45 women
tenants in her building. One-third
had experienced unwanted touching,
kissing and fondling from the super.
Gould, a publicist for Avon Books in
Manhattan, is now on a mission to
publicize the issue of sexual harass-
ment so that other women in other
buildings can begin to fight it. And
on a national level, precedent-setting
legal actions indicate that sexual
harassment in housing is moving
from being a dark and shameful sec-
ret to becoming a focus of fair housing
advocacy.
eNovember 1983: A federal
court in Toledo, Ohio found
landlord Norman Lewallen
guilty of violating the federal
Fair Housing Act for evicting
Tammy Shellhammer and her
husband after she refused to per-
form sexual acts with him. It is
the first case to include sexual
harassment in the definition of
sexual discrimination in hous-
ing.
eNovember 1984: A Milwaukee
landlord was found guilty of
housing discrimination for de-
manding sex of a woman tenant
in exchange for rent and to avoid
eviction. Plaintiff in the
Chomicki case, as it is known,
was awarded $19,000 . .
eMarch 1986: An administrative
law judge in New York City
ruled that sexual harassment
was a legitimate complaint
under the city's Administrative
Code and ordered a hearing in
the case of a woman whose land-
lord physically abused her and
requested sexual favors. In con-
structing the case, the Commis-
sion on Human Rights used the
Shellhammer decision to estab-
lish the link between sexual
harassment and fair housing-
the first such example in the
state.
Defining Thrms
Sexual harassment of women as it
relates to housing takes many differ-
ent forms. It can be the unwanted
physical or verbal advances of the
landlord, superintendent or even the
realtor who is showing a vacant apart-
ment. Innuendo, gestures and the
suggestion that repairs, normally re-
quired services or even the granting
of an apartment will be expedited if
a woman complies with the requests
of building owners or personnel are
also harassment.
And when a woman rejects those
Jodi. Gould at hom. in h.r kitch.n:
At I.ast J5 at".' wom.n in "., building "av. b n "arass.d by til. sup.r.
advances, refuses to cave in, retalia-
tion may also take a sexual, even vio-
lent, nature and lead to denial of ser-
vices or eviction. The common de-
nominator in all sexual harassment,
though, is the abuse of power and au-
thority by men who can affect a
woman's housing situation and
hence, the well-being of her and often
her children.
Power abuse is also a central con-
cept in another discriminatory prac-
tice women face: sexual harassment
at the workplace. That direct correla-
tion between two forms of harass-
ment was the foundation on which
the Shellhammer case was built. At-
torney Tom McCarter, a fair housing
specialist in Toledo, based the Shel-
lhammer's complaint on cases , de-
veloped under Title VII, the equal em-
ployment opportllnity statute of the
Civil Rights Act of 1968.
The federal judge who ruled on the
Shellhammer case was guided in his
definition of sexual harassment in
housi!lg by a 1982 employment case,
Henson vs. CIty of Dundee.' In that
case, the court described two forms
of harassment: creation of an "offen-
sive environment," and extracting or
seeking to extract "sexual considera-
tion in exchange for job benefits." Ap-
plying such criteria to housing, the
judge determined that sexual harass-
ment would consist of either creating
an offensive environment with a pat-
tern of harassment, or conditioning
tenancy upon sexual consideration.
After Tammy Shellhammer refused
the sexual overtures of Lewallen, he
evicted her and her husband
Thomas-clearly an example of te-
nancy conditioned upon sexual con-
sideration, as the court decided.
Parallels between sexual harass-
ment at work and in housing are clear,
says K.C. (Karen) Wagner, director of
Working Women's Institute in Man-
hattan. Located at Cornell's Institute
for Industrial and Labor Relations,
Working Women's Institute has for al-
most a decade provided education on
workplace harassment of women
workers. Two years ago, Wagner
began getting calls from women com-
plaining of problems with their land-
lords or supers.
"They would always start off by say-
ing, 'I know you focus on the work-
place, but it's happening at my
home' ," says Wagner. "People were
calling us as a resource and for the
first time, we really got evidence that
it was an issue."
Workplace harassment was also an
amorphous, unnamed problem that
countless women faced alone until
the women's movement of the early
1970's made it a civil rights issue.
Speak-outs at which victims of such
employment abuse publicly decried
June/July 1986 CITY LIMITS 17
what they had privately suffered in
silence encouraged others to do
likewise. Similarly, it is hoped that
women subjected to sexual harass-
ment in a housing context will in-
crease litigations and other forms of
resistance once the ice is broken.
"I think when women realize that
there are viable alternatives, that
other people have come forward, that
they don't have to endure this, then
we will see increased reporting,"
states Carla Wertheim. As director of
program services for the Metropoli-
tan Milwaukee Fair Housing Council,
she was instrumental in bringing the
Chomicki case to trial. Lots of media
coverage and public support for the
issue in Milwaukee caused reports to
the Council of harassment to mus-
hroom - a call a week in 1984-85,
says Wertheim. Calls still come
perhaps once a month, but "they
don't leave their names. Women are
afraid of their landlords and of being
blacklisted from housing. There is
still lots of reticence because sexual
harassment is still a very sensitive
issue."
Terribly underreported is how Dr.
Lois Veronen characterizes sexual
harassment in housing. She is an as-
sociate professor at the University of
South Carolina's Crime Victim Re-
search and Treatment Center and
thinks that psychologically, this
crime closely parallels rape. "It's the
same context. Women blame them-
selves for certain aspects of their be-
havior. Many women who've been
victims of sexual harassment are re-
luctant to define themselves as vic-
tims."
"Sexual harassment is really going
around and no woman is going to
admit it's happening because she's
too ashamed," asserts Lenora Casso,
a resident at the Women In Need
homeless shelter last winter. 'Com-
mon practice' is how she described
harassment from realtors and land-
lords and agreed with Dr. Veronen.
"These feelings are like in rape. All
you want to do is suppress and forget
about it. And that's how they feel
when they're laying with those land-
lords and supers. "
Home Sweet Home
Comparisons
harassment at work and in houstnc
go only so far. There's a point beyond .
18 CITY LIMITS June/July 1986
which such linkages fail because the
home is supposed to be one's haven
in a cruel and heartless world. When
the boss says lay down or be laid off,
at least a woman can run home, to
safety. When the landlord stalks her
in that one refuge, where can she run?
"At home is more devastating. It's
the place to go and be secure with
your family," states Shanna Smith, di-
rector of Toledo's Fair Housing
Center. The driving force behind the
Shellhammer case, Smith recalls that
in Lewallen's building, one woman
hid under her bed every time he came
on the premises.
"If women have no refuge, no place
where they feel safe, if the home
doesn't help in terms of restoration,"
states Dr. Veronen, "there is incredi-
ble psychological and physical dam-
age." Women who've been assaulted
in their homes have heightened anxi-
ety, fear and generalized feeling of
dysfunction, she says. Being ever vig-
ilant, not knowing when the culprit
will drop by, is absolutely exhausting
and creates incredible damage.
For homeless women seeking hous-
ing, harassment is yet one more ig-
nominy, proof once again of their
third class status. The path out of the
shelter, it seems, is paved with invita-
tions to prostitution. According to
Susan Diaz at Women in Need, it is
taken for granted that you will face
this treatment. "I had an experience
in the Bronx. I had been to a couple
of buildings where the landlords
were there and they had apartments
available. They get to the point where
they say, 'all right, I'll give you the
apartment if you'll be my girlfriend
now and then.' Here you are frus-
trated, you want to get the hell out
from where you're at, and the only
way you're going to get out is to use
our bodies."
The landlord convicted in the
Chomicki case preferred to rent to
single household heads, all women.
He kept one apartment vacant for sex-
ual encounters-in-lieu-of-rent. He
carried a gun and walked the halls
with a dog. Perverse patrols to make
the women feel good and unsafe in
the privacy of their homes.
Most of the women had bare-bones
incomes and when Dolores L. asked
for a month extension, he agreed but
over to collect payment. She man-
aged to avoid sex with him but not
an attempted eviction and a month
of harassment, with him prowling the
building. Dolores filed with the Fair
Housing Council and stopped sleep-
ing at night. She testified against him
in great fear for her life but her cour-
age paid off when he was found
guilty.
Murphy's Law
In New York as in Toledo or any-
where else, the targets of sexual
harassment by housing owners and
personnel are usually those men per-
ceive as easy prey for a variety of
reasons. For one, just being a woman
can be enough to invoke trouble.
"Women are seen as victims and vul-
nerable," says Harvey Fisher, Deputy
Director of Fair Housing at the city's
Commission on Human Rights. At the
West Central Queens Neighborhood
Stabilization Program, Ted Finkles-
tein says five times more women than
men come to complain about all
types of landlord troubles. While he
has few specific reports of sexual
harassment, "a lot of women are af-
raid when the super comes in for re-
pairs. The ever-present threat of rape
is there."
Single women with no men either
living with them or visibly present
around their apartments are espe-
cially vulnerable. The macho credo
that forbids a man to trespass the
bounds of another man's rel{ltionship
also dictates that an uI].attached
added his usual carnal caveat. He Single women living alone:
called one night to say he was coming Withoutt"e protection ola "usband or boyfriend, sing'e woman are 'ike'yfa'Sets for "ara .. ment.
woman is fair game. "I'm surprised
we haven't had more of an increase
in reporting," says Fisher. "We know
more and more single women are re-
nting alone or with roomates. It
seems to me the super can take advan-
tage more easily."
But being a woman without a man
does not complete the profile of can-
didates for sexual harassment. The
missing factor is money. "Usually it
is women with no man in the house,
who are poor, captive of the
economics of their plight and forced
to live in substandard housing,"
states Tom McCarter.
"Low income women are much
more vulnerable here," says Shanna
Smith. "They are easy targets for land-
lords." Investigating the Shellham-
mer case, Smith found 27 women in
Norman Lewallen's building who'd
been sexually harassed by him. All
were on welfare. The choices for them
boiled down to having sex with the
landlord or risking eviction; one
woman who did refuse his demands
found her belongings piled on the
street. High unemployment boxes
women into a corner, with few hous-
ing options, Smith says. "I find them
taking more abuse from landlords be-
cause there is so little alternative."
Women struggling to support chil-
dren on public assistance or no-frills
earnings bear greater pressure to keep
a roof over their collective head.
"With the increase in homelessness,
the fear of it is a dynamic that gets
played out, creating different risks
and consequences," says K.C.
Wagner.
"The landlords, they seem to know
who to prey on," Lenora Casso states.
"The supers. They know who to pick,
who's vulnerable. You might not have
ever sold your body in your life but
it comes to the fact that you got to
house your kids then you might take
that step and sleep with that landlord
just to keep yourself from a shelter.
Guilt doesn't matter when you've got
three kids and you're living in the
Martinique."
For poor women, homeless women,
women with little reason to believe
they can buck the system and every
reason to feel helpless, the risks of
speaking out against harassment may
seem too great.
Gloria Pagan decided it was too
risky not to speak out so May 2 she
June/July 1986 CITY LIMITS 19
The incidence of sexual harassment in a housing context is
enormous and tied to the housing crisis women face.
Te ..... Scofi.ld in the room wh .... h.r fri.nd _. raped:
Sh. got th. dog partIr os prot.ction in tit. oft.rmoth of th. rope.
swallowed her fear and headed to the
Queens Neighborhood Stabilization
office. "My nerves are wrecked. I can't
sleep. It's all piling up on me," she
explains. Since rejecting several sex-
ual advances by her landlord, her life
has been miserable.
' ~ t first he was fine, like a very
good friend," Pagan, 38, recalls. She
and her three children lived in their
Long Island City apartment for seven
years. The landlord and his wife
moved into the dwelling across from
theirs two years ago and seemed to
get along well in the close-knit com-
munity Pagan and the other tenants
had going. But she "never gave him
reason to think I was interested in
him."
Nevertheless, during a backyard
barbeque in July, 1985, he followed
her into the building and cornered
her in the hallway, pawing her until
she broke away. He approached her
and another woman tenant later dres-
sed only in underwear and started to
expose himself but they shouted and
walked away.
Since then, he has called the cops
twice on her and her children; he
went to her neighbors in March ask-
ing if they had complaints against
her in a bid to evict her; he holds her
rent checks and continually harasses
guests to Pagan's home. But worst is
his constant surveillance. "EvelY
time I open the door, he's there by the
peephole. My niece caught him with
20 CITY LIMITS June! July 1986
his ear on the door." On May 7, she
got a 'letter from his lawyer threaten-
ing to terminate her lease at the
month's end unless she complies
with a list of demands. Number one
is giving him a key to her home.
Pagan is on public assistance and
the $279 rent she pays is about all
she can. "Where am 1 going to go. I
can't afford to just pick up and
move." Besides she says, "this is my
home, my neighborhood. I know
everybody." At least one other
woman in the building that she
knows of was sexually harassed by
him, also Puerto Rican and on wel-
fare. Pagan's neighbor encourages her
to fight because he's been harassing
everybody. At this point it is a matter
of survival. "I'm afraid he might push
me to the limit, attack me or my 16-
year-old daughter." She filed harass-
ment charges with the state housing
division and waits for her day in
court.
War Games
Sexual harassment is also another
weapon in the arsenal of landlords
who wage war on tenants in order to
empty a building. Invading armies
have always sexually abused the
women of their enemy nations. And
for Terese Scofield, living at 285 St.
Johns PI. in Brooklyn was to live
under siege in 1984. Goons and drug
dealers were fixtures in the graffiti
littered lobby. The owners were
Jonathan Eichner and Louis
Hrusovsky, one of the Village Voice's
ten worst landlords. They were de-
veloping the buildings on either side
of 285 as luxury co-ops.
Scofield, now an organizer with
ACORN, took a fifth floor apartment
April 11, 1984 with a friend and
joined the tenants association fight
to save the building for its low income
residents.
On July 23, G., a friend of Scofield's
staying in her apartment was brutally
raped by an intruder who called her
'Terese' and said things about empty-
ing the building. "This block is ours,
you're not going to change things,"
Scofield remembers her friend repeat-
ing. G. was taken to Kings County
Hospital and the police arrived on the
scene but they never pursued the
case. "I couldn't believe the cops
didn't voucher all the evidence," says
Scofield. A blanket, books the rapist
touched and a comb he'd used sat in
a bag in her closet for five months.
Scofield filed a complaint with the
Civilian Review Board but that, too,
went nowhere. Her friend is still, two
years later, unable and unwilling to
discuss the incident.
Legal Foothold
Three cases of sexual harassment
by landlords and supers have been
filed with the New York City Commis-
sion on Human Rights to date. One
was settled last year ( see sidebar); two
others will go to hearing this summer.
The federal decision in Shellhammer
vs. Lewallen will figure prominently
in the proceedings.
"In pleading and the trial, they will
cite Shellhammer and employment
cases," says Harvey Fisher, "it be-
comes a legal foothold." They' refers
to Bill Herbert and Cathryn Clemens,
staff attorneys for the Commission.
Herbert got a green light in April from
an administrative law judge who
found sexual harassment by a land-
lord was a form of sex discrimination
under the city's Administrative Code.
Now a hearing date must be set.
The city's Code prohibits various
forms of discrimination within the
city and is administered by the Com-
mission on Human Rights. It is sub-
stantially equivalent to federal civil
rights legislation but federal courts
pack a stronger remedial punch than
the Commission, imposing harsher
penalties. Federal court decisions
also can become the basis for future
litigations. That's why the federal de-
cision in Shellhammer is a vital pre-
cedent setter. I
"The whole point in Fair Housing
is the right to the quiet, peaceful en-
joyment of your house,"! explains
Shanna Smith. "Sexual discrimina-
tion also means harassment." She
didn't know the problem existed
until calls came in from l.ewallen's
tenants in 1983. Limited funding and
staff have slowed the Toledo Fair
Housing Center in pursuing the issue.
But with time, energy and three good
lawyers, she intends "to broaden this
aspect of the law," adding, "it already
has taken on national significance."
Human rights commissions across
the country are now calling Toledo
for advice on handling sexual harass-
ment in housing cOIIlplaints.
One angle that makes this new fair
housing issue more difficult to tackle
than other recognized forms of dis-
crimination is the gathering of proof.
In racial discrimination cases, black
and white testers are sent out to seek
(Continued on Page 22)
Anomey Bill Herbert of the Commission on Human Rights:
Using the Shellhommer case in Ohio, he has built a disc,imination case 10, a New Yo." woman
abused by he, landlord.
June/July 1986 CITY LIMITS 21
The landlord in the Chomicki case kept one apartment vacant
for sexual encounters-in-lieu-of-rent.
"He Picked the Wrong Person"
Graciela Lopez Truell is no- --r---------"I"""--
body's fool. Her resume reads like
an entry in the Who's Who of the
Hispanic community, with a chair
on the city Transit Authority Advis-
ory Council, memberships in the
Latin Leaders Council, Image Wall
Street, the League of Latin Amer-
ican Citizens, the National Associ-
ation of Female Executives and the
Coro Fpundation, of which she is
a
She thought she was too slick to
ever ;fall victim to the sexual
harassment she experienced in
May, '1985 but has since learned
"you'rlf never too slick. " She
shakes her head now to recall the
day the superintendent of her Bay
Ridge building turned an inspec-
tion of her apartment for repairs
into a harrowing physical assault
that haunts her still.
"He says to me, 'I have always
liked you and when you were mar-
ried, I stayed away. But now that
you're not married any more ... ' and
I remind him he's a married man,"
she recounts, the incredulity still
fresh. "I stood up and said I had
other things to do. Then he came
at me." Grabbing her around the
waist, he pulled her towards him
while sharply digging his fingers
into her back, leaving bruises. The
woman who avoids pushing a
broom if she can help it, mustered
the strength to push him away and
screamed for him to leave. Moving
men were busy in the hallway;
their bustling proximity scared
away her attacker. He returned
only to slip a note under the door
telling her to forget about getting
any repairs.
What followed was a seven-
month pursuit of justice and re-
pairs that to this day have never
been completed. But this first
eration Puerto Rican is a stubborn
woman who doesn't let go and who
has the confidence and connec-
tions to do battle with a landlord
and his employee. "I went through
a lot to get where I am. I'm not
going to let some fool tell me that
I have to put up my body to get
repairs done," she says."
Graciela Truell's home is her castle:
The stigma of 'bad woman' . often keeps Hispanic women silent about harassment.
First she changed the lock on her within walking distance and the
door and called landlord Samuel service men coming in and out,
Fisher and related the story to one there's a big turnover in that build-
of his employees who gave her ing."
sympathy but no satisfaction. The The Commission held a hearing
super was never reprimanded. in August at which the super de-
Then she called her friend Eddie nied everything but her case was
Mercado, head of the Equal Em- strong and the landlord's attorney
ployment Opportunity Commis- knew it. He settled with her in
sion, who sent her to the city's November with a $1,250 payment
Commission on Human Rights. and a reprimand to the super who
Having worked as an EEO officer now cannot enter a woman's apart-
with AT&T, she knew sexual dis- ment unaccompanied. She feels
crimination when it grabbed her vindicated on principle but no
but wasn't sure where to go. safer in her home and she' ll never
"I filed a complaint against the trust the super again. Not in the
management, the super and the hallways, not in the dark basement
woman because I felt it was her where the wash room and his of-
responsibility to tell manage- fice are located. For a few dollars
ment," she explains. In July, the more, she sends her laundry out.
Commission started an investiga- The key to sexual harassment in
tion, using Lopez Truell's meticul- housing, she claims, is intimida-
ous documentation ("I'm a busi- tion. "I think gumption is what
ness woman. Everything I do is makes the difference between cal-
written on a calendar") and solicit- ling the Human Rights Commis-
ing information from Fisher. The sion or not. I am sure that this has
landlord came around to her apart- happened many times in my build-
ment one day, offering her two ing. But people don't know what
months rent and moving expenses. their real rights are." Hispanic
There was no way she would be women, in general, she believes are
bought off to leave her home, not especially hesitant to complain
with the reasonable rent she was about sexual harassment "because
paying and the convenience to then you're a bad woman - the
transportation. She saw through stigma of a bad woman. " Lopez
his ploy. "He'd love to see me out. Truell doesn't worry much about
I'm a very old tenant, my rent is stigmas, though. For her it was a
low. Usually those apartments go matter of defending her civil
for $700-800. With Fort Hamilton rights. OA.F.
22 CITY LIMITS June/July 1986
"We all thought it was an isolated situation. Once you find out
other women are experiencing it, it makes you powerful."
The' Ke " Ques,non
, Y 'fit, ..... . ,'M.... 0c.
the same apartment. Can just any
woman go out to test for sexual
harassment and if no advances are
made, does that rule out harassment
or only that the harasser has specific
preferences in women? Fisher recalls
the dilemma in his office over check-
ing a sexual harassment complaint
against a landlord. "We contemplated
wiring someone or sending out a co-
worker. It raises the issue of who does
a sexist view as attractive. The upshot
was we decided it was too danger-
ous."
The Shellhammer case posed simi-
1ar difficulties for the Toledo Fair
Housing Center. "We were hesitant to
expose volunteers to this," says
Shanna Smith, "so another person
and I decided to do the testing." At
landlord Lewallen's building, Smith
and her colleague got all the proof
they wanted and more. "He offered
to make arrangements for the other
woman. He got specific with me, said
if I slept with him I'd never have to
pay rent. I got it on tape." The vice
squad was brought in, too, by the im-
plication of prostitution.
Legal actions to challenge dis-
criminatory harassment are impor-
tant steps in redressing a clear and
present danger to women's civil
rights. There needs to be much more
done, though, to support those ex-
posed to sexual abuses at home or in
pursuit of a home to talk about it.
Only when huge numbers of women
began entering the workforce, the
problem of sexual harassment gained
critical mass. And only when work-
ing women came out of isolation to
discuss it did the problem gain
momentum for change. Unions inc or-
@i lf . mow there is 8; "
a key ovel)

lord the right to break down the
expense.
,) Thchnically;Yhot providing a key
gives the landlord a right to bring
eviction proceedin8ll. But control-
W;1g access tOYYoUf may re:
quire ' thi$ teonmc8.1 violation
.. your ,rights
an !Hi .L.J.lW.ao. ""
porated sexual harasssment into the
strategy for organizing women work-
ers, especially clericals.
As more women are living outside
the traditional male-headed family,
the need for protections from harass-
ment becomes imperative. Using the
workplace model in combating
harassment "women must organize
tenant associations. Especially with
women living alone and as heads of
households," concludes Karen
Wagner. "Women must break the si-
lence, seek support and counseling.
Take what we know about workplace
harassment-the fear, stress, anxi-
ety-and apply it to housing. Advo-
cates must be alerted to it."
Her encounter with the super was
the catalyst for Jodie Gould forming
a tenants association at her Upper
West Side building. The "association's
main demand is that landlord Jacob
Haberman remove the superinten-
dent. "When he's in a position of au-
thority in the building, such behavior
cannot be tolerated," Gould says.
Since drawing togetMr other
women tenants to discuss I building
wide problems, Gould sees a more
aggressive attitude that cah be chan-
neled to change. "We all thought it
was an isolated situation we could
handle by ourselves. Once you find
out other women are experiencing it,
it makes you powerful." Armed with
a new strength in unity and knowl-
edge of their fair housing rights,
women can begin to turn the tables
on sexual harassers wherever they
live.D
PIPELINE
Renovation Deal
Burns COlnlnunity Group
BY DOUG TURETSKY
AFTER A TEN YEAR STRUGGLE TO
begin the l1,'lnovation of the landmark
Mohawk Hotel in Clinton Hill, Brook-
lyn, the groundbreaking ceremony
should hare been a celebration for the
Pratt Area Community Council. But
HortensEl : Beveridge, PACe's acting
executive director, candidly admits,
"We're embarrassed."
The for PACC's embarrass-
ment is tpe projected price for renting
an apartment at the Mohawk-from
$900 to $1,200 per month. The com-
munity group's original intention
was to save the once luxurious hotel
from the wrecking ball and make it a
place for affordable housing. But a
long, drawn out process of negotia-
tions between PACC, the city and pri-
vate developer Abraham Shnay re-
sulted in a high-priced renovation
project.
What riles PACC is the sense that
they were manipulated. "We don't
mind a range of housing in the neigh-
borhood because it can take it. We
don't like being forced into a gentrify-
ing position," says Beveridge.
The Pratt Area Community Coun-
cil's involvement with the Mohawk
began when it was being used as a
welfare hotel. PACC advocated for bet-
ter services for the clients, but the
hotel was in such disrepair that the
city eventually closed it. Slated for
demolition, PACC moved to bring a
developer in to renovate the building.
Over a period of a few years, several
plans were by the commu-
nity until PACC and Shnay came to
terms in January 1982.
At the time, the city was offering
to sell the building for $400,000 and
provide renovation financing through
the Participation Loan Program. But
the city unexpectedly issued a Re-
quest for Proposals for the Mohawk.
Department of Housing Preservation
and Development spokesperson
Charles Perkins explains that the de-
partment felt it would be unfair to
turn the project over to Shnay with-
out competitive bidding.
Upping the Ante
The city eventually chose the
ShnaylPACC plan, which included a
revolving loan fund for the commu-
nity to be started by the developer
and administered by PACC. Despite
the city's acceptance, the project re-
mained at a standstill. "Shnay, for
reasons that are totally beyond me,
. didn't close on the deaL" recalls How-
ard Weiss, PACe's chairperson. ''All
of a sudden we found out the city
was renegotiating the price." Adds
Beveridge, "By the end of '84 there
was definitely some futzing going on.
By the spring of '85 they withdrew
the PLP and announced the price was
$1.8 million."
Perkins defends the quadrupling of
the price because a new appraisal was
done. "The value of the site went up
significantly between the two apprai-
sals." But Beveridge believes the
price hike was part of an HPD effort
to spur the gentrification process
which had already begun in the
neighborhood.
The $1.87 million price tag and
lack 0 PLP money forced the
Mohawk renovation into a market
rate projer;t. "The nature of the pro-
ject chanr:ed as the nature of the mar-
ket changed," explained Perkins. But
Wei ss believes those changes were
guided by more than market forces.
"When the whole thing started it
would have been market rate for the
area. As things progressed it went
below market rate for the area, but
the city's new price pushed it over."
Even with renovation under way,
there's still jousting between the pro-
tagonists. After five years, the
Mohawk will be converted to a co-op,
and PACC is concerned that the de-
veloper will earn windfall profits that
won't be reinvested in the neighbor-
hood. Shnay says that a complicated
financing arrangement ensures "the
city will share in the proceeds." But
Beveridge and Weiss are not con-
June/July 1986 CITY LIMITS 23
New life for on old building:
Community octivists wonted the Mohowle reno-
voted, but not for rent. "orting ot $900.
vinced such money' winds up back
in the community where it was
earned.
PACC and the city also have not yet
come to terms on the revolving loan
fwid-even though HPD received
the $125,000 from Shnay for the prog-
ram last November. Negotiations con-
tinue, despite Perkin's claim, '',J'mnot
,sure we disagree on anything."
Beveridge terms the whole experi-
ence "frustrating" and says the group
considered pulling out of the deal al-
together but feared the Mohawk
would be demolished and the com-
munity stuck "with a great big two-
block hole in the ground." She adds,
"For those iJ;l the neighborhood that
say we work too much for the poor,
this project satisfies them. liD
24 CITY LIMITS June/July 1986
LEGISLATION
Citizenship Checks for Public Housing
BY ANDY LANSET
THE FEDERAL DEPARTMENT OF
Housing and Urban Development
(HUD) recently directed local hous-
ing officials to evict from government
subsidized housing anyone who is
not a U.S. citizen or legal immigrant.
The regulation, which takes effect
July 30th, was prompted by asser-
tions that undocumented immigrants
are taking housing away from poor
Americans.
The new regulation states that fed-
erally subsidized housing is only for
those who were born here or who are
naturalized citizens. Others will be
put out on the street. "We have li-
mited resources," explained HUD Re-
gional Administrator Joseph Montic-
ciolo. "There might very well be
homeless who are eligible for public
housing who are being denied an
apartment because they're being oc-
cupied by illegal aliens."
But there has been no evidence to
substantiate that public housing is
being overrun by undocumented
aliens. In New York, the city with the
single largest homeless population in
the nation, local, state and federal of-
ficials cannot estimate the number of
homeless people displaced by the un-
documented. "What the ultimate
numbers are, it's very difficult to as-
sess at this particular point in time,"
admitted Monticciolo.
Mayor Edward Koch has said he
has no way of knowing and cannot
provide figures. Koch has estimated
New York City is home to between
400,000-750,000 undocumented im-
migrants; the majority of whom he
has called "self supporting, law abid-
ing residents." The New York City
Housing Authority (NYCHA) is also
unable to provide figures. "It's a con-
tradiction in terms. If they're illegal
and I know about them, then I'm sup-
posed to act. I don't know about
them," said Val Coleman, a spokes-
man for the Housing Authority.
In 1980 the New York City Housing
Authority was required to check on
the citizenship of all its applicants.
But in real terms, the guideline did
not come into effect until 1984. From
time to time the agency would ask
applicants for green cards and birth
certificates, but this procedure was
apparently not a strict matter of re-
cord. "What we have done over the
years was to permit some people to
come into public housing who are not
legally entitled to it. I don't know how
many. In effect we have entrapped
these people. Now we are going to
turn around and demand you prove
your citizenship or legal alien
status," explained Coleman.
The Chairman of the Housing Au-
housing. "We see evidence of this in
the use of our facilities," said Col-
eman. "We're not aggressively evict-
ing them because we don't want to
put more people in Grand Central Sta-
tion. It's just irrational and certainly
inhumane."
Federal Follies
Last October, an angry Mayor Koch
issued a memorandum to city agen-
cies (including NYCHA) instructing
them not to report "illegal aliens" in
Howard Jordan of Latino. United for Political Action:
He .ay. the memo telling city worleers nat to report undocumented allen. to Nderal official.
doe.n't carry much weight.
thority, Emanuel Popolizio, believes
the situation is being overem-
phasized. He told the City Council's
Committee on Housing and Build-
ings, "A quick reading of recent press
reports gives the impression that il-
legal aliens are swarming all over the
projects doing their 'devilish' work.
It just isn't true."
But the Housing Authority does
know that 15 to 20 percent of its ten-
ants are there illegally, doubled-up
with friends and family because of
severe shortage of low income
the city to federal authorities except
when the aliens appeared to be en-
gaged in some kind of criminal activ-
ity. At that time Koch charged the fed-
eral government with allowing un-
documented immigrants into the city
while refusing to share the cost of pro-
viding services to them. The federal
government will only provide sub-
sidies for essential services based on
the number of people counted by cen-
sus takers. If that number is lower
than those actually requesting ser-
vices, as it is in New York, the city
must pay the difference. The Bureau
of the Census, by its own estimate,
undercounted the number of New
York City residents by about 524,000
people in 1980. The Koch Administra-
tion believes the undercount is much
larger and has resulted in a loss to
the city of between $26 to $52 million
annually since 1980. The Koch ad-
ministration is pressing in the courts
for a statistical adjustment to the
count in the face of Census Bureau
refusals to adjust the count itself.
The Koch memorandum was not
only an effort to strike back at the
federal government but was also the
result of pressure brought by advo-
cates for immigrants' rights. Almost
a year prior to the memorandum,
members of Latinos United for Polit-
ical Action (LUPA), a citywide organi-
zation with 500 members, asked
Koch to issue an executive order pro-
hibiting the reporting by city agencies
of undocumented workers to federal
authorities. The mayor's response
was less than positive. But after a
series of LUPA petition drives, a hear-
ing organizec! with the Center for Im-
migrants Rights and the support of
City Councilmembers Stanley
Michels and Fernando Ferrer and As-
semblyman Jose Rivera, Koch issued
the memo.
Activists, however, are still not
pleased because a memo does not
carry nearly as much weight as an
executive order. "The average person
does not know the difference between
a memorandum and an executive
order, said L U P ~ s Howard Jordan.
"As far as they are concerned the
mayor did something of unpre-
cedented proportions. But the reality
is that if a commissioner decided to
ignore the memo he could very easily
do so."
While the city Housing Authority
is seeking an amendment to the fed-
eral regulation that would exempt
longtime residents, such a change ap-
pears unlikely. Currently, NYCHA
does not knowingly allow un-
documented immigrants into public
housing although, "people do get in
and obviously it is stupid to say that
we don't have some illegal immig-
rants in public housing," said Col-
June/July 1986 CITY LIMITS 25
eman. "However, we don't aggres-
sively pursue a policy of evicting
them and we aren't equipped to do
what the immigration and naturaliza-
tion service is equipped to do."
But to follow the law while not
being equipped to do so presents a
problem, placing a strain on an al-
ready overburdened system. Advo-
cates for the homeless and housing
activists contend that the government
is searching for a needle in a haystack
and the new HUD regulation, will at
best, produce only a handful of apart-
ments for New York's tens of
thousands of homeless. In the mean-
time, federal dollars spent enforcing
the new regulation by canvassing the
entire public housing population for
birth certificates and green cards
could be better spent providing
homes for the homeless. "This is an
inappropriate response to a very seri-
ous problem," said Andy Scherer,
housing coordinator for Community
Action for Legal Services.
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Immigrants rights activists charge the new federal ruling uses
immigrants and refugees as scapegoats for the government's
failur.e to deal with the housing crisis.
naw living in public hausing also.
raises the issue af privacy. Can-
gressman Rabert Garcia is cancerned
abaut NYCHA's ability to. do. an accu-
rate jab. "Wha's gaing to. make the
determinatian whether yau're deal-
ing with a Daminican ar a Salvada-
ran. The average persan daesn't knaw
the difference and befare they go.
crazy and start evicting peaple and
find themselves with large lawsuits,
they better be very careful ," said Gar-
cia. Even NYCHA is wary af the prab-
lems the new regulatian will bring.
"I dan't knaw where my birth certifi-
cate is, much less many af the tenants
who. indeed dan't knaw where there's
is. Daes that mean that I'm an illegal
immigrant because I can't put my
hands an my birth certificate?" ques-
tianed Caleman.
Civil rights attarneys also. argue
that undacumented immigrants are
entitled to. certain benefits because
the canstitutian guarantees due pra-
cess af law and equal pratectian af
the laws to. any persan, nat just citi-
zens. "There is a strang argument that
peaple are here vialating the law per
se because they're nat here with dacu-
ments. But at that paint I think yau
have a respansibility under the can-
stitutian to. pravide peaple with
minimum to. life: hausing, educatian,
etc., and then pracedurally perhaps
deal with whether ar nat they're here
in ar aut af status," declared Laurdes
Santiago., staff attarney with the
Center for Immigrants' Rights.
place safety vialatians may decide
nat to. rep art their victimizatian far
fear that their presence in the city will
came to. the attentian af immigratian
autharities. "
Blaming the Victim
In a backgraund paper far the can-
servative Heritage Faundatian, Julian
L. Siman writes that any claim im-
the new HUD guideline actively di-
verts public attentian away from the
real issue af hausing and gavern-
ment's respansibility to. the hameless ,
by using immigrants and refugees as
scapegaats far palitical gain. "I can't
fail but natice that the annauncement
af this new regulatian came a week
and a half after President Reagan gat
an televisian to. warn us abaut the
Many immigratian attarneys agree.
Claudia Slavinsky has been repre-
senting undacumented immigrants
far the last eight years. She describes
her clients as peaple who. are so.
scared af becaming visible, they are
afraid to. appraach the gavernment far
any benefit. Because af this,
Slavinsky and ather critics af the new
HUD regulatian argue it will anly
serve to. attack a vulnerable papula-
tian and praduce no. real tangible re-
sults. "Undacumented immigrants
are a graup that pays taxes aut af their
paychecks and do. nat recaver what's
theirs by filing incame tax returns. It
is a graup afraid af being faund aut
and as a result is explaited because
af their undacumented status," said
Slavinsky.
Immi.9ration attorney Claudia Siavinsky:
She believes enlorcement of the HUD regulations scapegoats a vulnerable population.
In his memo. to. city agencies last
fall, Mayar Kach stated that un-
dacumented aliens who. are "victims
af crime, cansumer 'fraud, ar wark-
migrants pay less than their share af
taxes is pure fictian and that "immig-
rants benefit natives thraugh the pub-
lic caffers by using less than their
share af services." The University af
Maryland ecanamist also. debunks
ather papular canceptians abaut im-
migrants such as their abuse af the
welfare system and their taking af na-
tive jabs. His studies shaw that the
explaitatian af immigrants actually
benefits the U.S. ecanamy. He writes,
"all the individual ecanamic abjec-
tians to. immigrants are withaut fac-
tual faundatian."
Immigrants' rights activists believe
explaitatian af the undacumented
has naw taken an an added, yet famil-
iar, histarical dimensian: a theme af
anti-immigrant sentiment that
blames the newcamer far all the na-
tian's ills. In this case, they charge
threatened flaw af foreigners stream-
ing acrass aur barders unless Can- ,
gress appraves aid to. the Nicaraguan
Cantras," said attarney Slavinsky.
''And here they are again, in this case,
aliens taking aver scarce hausing re-
saurces. I think it is a virtually nan-
existent prablem in camparisan to.
the scape af the hausing prablem in'
New Yark."
Jaseph Manticciala denied timing
was a factar in the agency's decisian
to. implement the new regulatian.
"The law was passed several years
ago. and afficials ~ s t decided to. im-
plement it naw. "0
Andy Lanset is a 'freelance reparter '
for WBAI and National Public Radio. ,
June/July 1986 CITY LIMITS 27
PIPELINE
Wrap-around Mortgages: Buyers and
Tenants 8evvare .,--l----------.,
BY DOUG TURETSKY
WITH BANKS FAILING TO MEET THE
mortgage needs of many com-
munities, private individuals and
companies have been stepping in to
make the money available. Purchase
money and wrap-around mortgages
have become the alternative to con-
ventional bank financing. "Wrap-
arounds have always been around but
they weren't a major issue until a few
years ago," says Margaret Stix of the
Coalition Against Redlining.
The wrap-around mortgage made
it easy for virtually anyone to get
financing. But Elizabeth Rodriguez,
a housing specialist with the Commu-
nity Service Society, thinks that
wrap-around mortgages are just a
new gimmick enabling real estate
specualtors to "milk a property but
keep an arms length so the legal sys-
tem can't touch them."
A soon-to-be-released study of the
Stratton Park neighborhood in the
Bronx by the Neighborhood Stabiliza-
tion Program found a definite correla-
tion between buildings with wrap-
around mortgages and frequent
changes in ownership and run-down
conditions. Lou Zanari, who con-
ducted the study, says that buildings
with wrap-around mortgages in Strat-
ton Park proved to have four times
the number of title changes, two
times as many mortgages and a much
higher incidence of housing court liti-
gation than neighborhood buildings
with conventional bank mortgages.
Declares Marion Swan, a member of
NSP's Reinvestment Unit, "Wrap
buildings are going to be like cancers
in the neighborhood."
Wrap-around mortgages grew out
of the legitimate practice of purchase
money mortgages, now the number
one means of financing property in
the city. Purchase money mortgages
are buyer/seller arrangements in
which the seller of the property
grants and holds the mortgage on the
building. A wrap-around mortgage
combines any pre-existing mortgages
along with a new purchase money
. mortgage-the wrap takes prece-
dence over all the other mortgages,
lit.erally wrapping around them.
Often wrap-arounds are paper trans-
actions, with no cash changing
hands. The down payment is simply
tacked onto the new mortgage.
The Game Plan
One of the major problems with
this scheme is that private mortgage
lenders don't have to play by the same
rules as commercial banks or savings
and loan associations. The wrap
mortgage is structured so the wrapper
can't lose. The rent roll goes directly
to the wrap mortgagor, who pays off
all liens against the building before
turning over any "surplus" back to
the owner. What looks like a sweet
deal to someone who wants to own
a building but can't meet the financial
requirements of the conventional
banks, turns out to be a trap.
The wrap-around mortgage will al-
most always force the debt service on
a building - the combination of any
pre-existing mortgages, liens and the
new purchase money mortgage-
beyond the means of the rent role.
With the greatest part of the build-
ing's income going to the wrap-hol-
der, there's little or no cash available
for building maintenance.
At a workshop recently organized
to discuss the growing problem of
wrap financing, moderator Elizabeth
Rodriguez said, "The wrappers are
taking a legitimate financing method
to really line their pockets." Attempts
by tenants to demand improved ser-
vices will generally backfire because
it's the mortgagor who is really in con-
trol. If tenants undertake legal action
or a rent strike, the wrapper can forec-
lose and then lure some other unsus-
pecting buyer into the trap. Says Jim
Buckley, an organizer for the North-
west Bronx Community and Clergy
Coalition, "Traditional organizing
methods present a real problem in
wrap mortgage buildings." In reality,
the owner is little more than a manag-
ing agent for the speculator operating
in the guise of a mortgage banker.
Double Jeopardy
While the use of wrap-around
mortgages was first noted in the
Northwest Bronx, the gambit seems
to be a growing citywide phenome-
non. Not only is it a lucrative financ-
ing proposition for the wrappers, but
the rapid change in ownership in
wrap mortgage buildings artificially
inflates the value of the property.
The use of wraps occurs almost ex-
clusively in in trans-
ition," where banks are reluctant to
make loans but demand is growing.
These are the types of neighborhoods
that need banking practices which
encourage reinvestment. Buckley
was told by one notorious wrapper
. continued on pale 30
28 CITY LIMITS June! July 1986
Shopsteading: The City Deals a Slovv Hand
BY SUE REYNOLDS
YOU MAY HAVE HEARD OF SHOP-
steading-the city's program to help
small businesses set up shop in now-
vacant storefronts. If you live or travel
near Harlem s 125th Street or Park
Slope's northern Fifth Avenue, you
may even have seen some of the
boarded-up buildings with the blue-
and-white Shopsteading signs.
What you almost never see is a
Shopsteading sign on a repaired and
occupied building. Since the prog-
ram was announced in 1980, only five
of 73 projects have been completed.
Despite this snail's pace record that
has created just one new business in
its initial Fifth Avenue target area, the
city has now declared that Shop stead-
ing has successfully restored market
demand for property on the avenue,
and has transferred unclaimed build-
ings from Shopsteading to sale at pub-
lic auction.
The Shopsteading concept seemed
simple and practical. The Depart-
ment of Housing Preservation and De-
velopment would match small busi-
ness owners in search of space with
its stock of vacant, city-owned build-
ings. In return for low-interest loans
to purchase and r!="lnovate a building,
the shopsteader would be required to
run a business in the building and
rehabilitate any upstairs apartments.
The city would increase its property
and sales tax collections, and by con-
centrating the program on troubled
commercial strips, help revitalize
neighborhoods as well.
The Fifth Avenue Experience
Shopsteading's 1981 Request for
Proposals focused on 14 buildings in
the dilapidated northern section of
Brooklyn's Fifth Avenue. "There was
a desperate lack of basic services-
you could walk blocks to get a quart
of milk," recalls Rebecca Reich, then
co-director of the local Fifth Avenue
Committee. 'l\vo years and no sales
later, Shopsteading had done nothing
to change that situation. In 1983, HPD
issued a new Request for Proposals,
reoffering many of the original Fifth
Avenue properties as well as some 20
properties in central Harlem and scat-
Paul Chana, shap.teader on Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn:
Fi .. e years in'o 'lie program, only two stores "a .. e op.ned on til. stre.t.
tered sites in the other boroughs.
In 1985, four years into the prog-
ram, the Fifth Avenue community's
patience with Shopsteading was
wearing very thin. As Keith Getter,
director of the Park SlopelFifth Av-
enue Local Development Corpora-
tion, explained, "Most of the prospec-
tive shopsteaders are just the local
and minority small businesses that
the program was intended for. What's
been horrible is the molasses-flowing
slow speed of the program."
Shopsteading had produced one new
business, Roy Maynard's Lighting In-
teriors store at the north end of the
street, made another sale to the exist-
ing fruit and vegetable store a few
doors away, and sold eight other
buildings. Meanwhile, in less than
two years, the unassisted private mar-
ket had opened almost 15 businesses.
Rather than being the engine of re-
vitalization, Shopsteading and its
vacant buildings were functioning
more like brakes.
Responding in part to rising com-
munity concern after negotiations for
162,177-79,182 and 187 Fifth Avenue
collapsed in the spring of 1985,
Shopsteading director Joel Schnur
asked Community Board 6 for an al-
ternative sales approach. The board
proposed a creative Request for Prop-
osals arrangement, including moder-
ate income housing, and setting aside
part of the sales revenues for business
loans in the area. Instead, with sup-
port from the Brooklyn Borough Pres-
ident's office, HPD put the four build-
ings on the October 1985 public auc-
tion block, with some tight develop-
ment deadline requirements. The
buildings brought a combined sales
price of over $1.3 million.
To program director Schnur, the au-
ction was a sign of Shopsteading's
success, not a flight from public re-
sponsibility or an admission of fail-
ure. "Buildings that once sold for
$20,000 now bring $250,000. Obvi-
ously Shopsteading has achieved its
goal of seeding a neighborhood so
that normal private enterprise can
take over. If those buildings were kept
in the program and if Shopsteading
stayed on Fifth Avenue, it would hurt
that basic purpose."
Getter questioned whether one
new business and nine other property
sales could revive a market, and also
questioned Schnur's assessment of
the auction. "On the positive side, the
auction and its requirements mean
that the properties will finally be re-
paired and occupied. But those
prices only validate and encourage
speculators in the area, and make any-
thing except high income coopera-
tives impossible." After the auction,
the local development corporation
again pressed HPD to place a portion
of the sales revenues in a local busi-
ness loan fund, a proposal rejected
as "inappropriate."
Meanwhile, the auction is appa-
rently the wave of the future for drop-
out Shopsteading buildings on Fifth
Avenue; in June, 141,143 and 147-149
Fifth Avenue will also be up for auc-
tion.
"Slow Success"?
The problems that held Fifth Av-
enue in limbo for four years and made
the auction of these six building pos-
sible-or, in HPD s words, the prog-
ram s "slow success" -are built into
the very structure of Shopsteading by
the city.
Take money, for instance. The fi-
nancial supports for small business
participation in the program are un-
impressive on paper and even slim-
mer in reality. Shopsteading proper-
ties are not bargain purchases. The
city sells the building at market
value, then sugarcoats that pill by
providing partial purchase loans at
B.5 percent or 12 percent interest (de-
pending on building type).
Although building prices only aver-
age $20,000, the purchase mortgage
is both another monthly cost and an
added obstacle to obtaining addi-
tional financing for repairs. While the
city offers B.5 percent repair loans for
commercial space and one percent
financing for half the value of residen-
tial repairs (through the Participation
Loan Program) , very few owners have
used these programs. According to
program director Schnur, the loan re-
quires that owners pay union wages
to all workers increases costs so much
that businesses find it cheaper to ob-
tain financing elsewhere. This limits
the program to small businesses with
extensive individual resources or
neighborhoods with access to scarce
bank financing.
The other major problem for
shopsteaders is the mismatch. be-
tween city government's complicated
bureaucratic demands and the typi-
cal small business owner's lack of
sophistication and time to
adequately meet those demands.
Often praising the program staff's at-
tempts to help, many shopsteaders
complain loudly about the rounds of
delays, petty details, and mounds of
. paperwork required by the program.
"For a $15,000 purchase loan, they
gave me an BO-page agreement's docu-
ment," said Joseph Speiser, president
of the Kimball Check cashing Com-
pany, which is rehabbing a building
on the Bronx's Burnside Avenue. "My
lawyer a ~ v i s e d me that a detailed
June/July 1986 CITY LIMITS 29
years. The program problems have
also meant more participation by de-
velopers than originally envisioned.
The first project completed in the
Bronx was a supermarket at Woodyc-
rest and Ogden Avenue, created from
11 storefronts by a New Jersey de-
veloper and rented to a Pioneer
Supermarket franchisee. And Fifth
Avenue's largest project, the three
storefrontl36 apartment con-
dominium at Sterling Place, is being
Keith Getter, director of the Park Slope/Fifth Avenue Local Development Corp.:
"Shopsteoding as currently implemented doesn't worlc well."
legal analysis could cost me almost
as much as the loan. " Keith Getter
suggested, "Shopsteading as cur-
rently implemented doesn't work
well because you have inexperienced
business owners acting as real estate
developers without the necessary as-
sistance and support."
HPD's perspective on these issues,
of course, is that the requirements are
necessary to assure that legal stan-
dards are met. Said Schnur, "There s
a lot of handholding in this program,
but when it comes down to it, some
of them are able to do it and some
aren't - some have dreams and no
money, some have money and no abil-
ity. "
Wasted Opportunities
For Fifth Avenue, the problems
meant two years of deterioration and
inaction between the first proposal
in 1981 and the second round of prop-
osals in 1983-a period when
Shopsteading.s weak incentives
couldn't lure businesses to invest in
the avenue. Almost none of the
shopsteaders from that period ever
purchased a property; in one in-
stance, the process has taken five
developed by a Brooklyn electrician
and plumber.
Another apparent victim of the
program's inability to provide
cheaper rehab financing may be those
much-discussed upstairs apart-
ments. In order to open the commer-
cial part of the building, HPD has
granted long-term extensions of its re-
sidential rehab deadline to its first
new storefront in Harlem, Magic
Maintenance at 409-411 West 125th
Street, and to existing tenant purch-
aser Perk's Coffee Cup at Manhattan
Avenue and West 123rd Street. Local
residents simply can't afford the
rents. Even the Sterling Court con-
dominiums, where a one bedroom
apartment sells for $100,000, are af-
fordable only to the newly arrived
middle class of the community.
As Shopsteading prepares for its
third round of proposal requests,
targeted neighborhoods wanting to
avoid Fifth Avenue's wasted years
need to take a long hard look at the
needs and market in their area. Then
they can decide whether Shopstead-
ing's success stories are worth the
wait.D
,' .. - ~ ..
30 CITY LIMITS June/July 1986
BUILDING BLOCKS
Masonry Repairs
ditives for special purposes.
All masonry repairs must be pro-
tected from the weather until mater-
ials have thoroughly dried. As a gen-
eral rule, doing the work when the
temperature is between 50F and
80F, and the weather is dry, will
make it easier to produce a well
finished job. As always, read and fol-
low manufacturer's instructions.
SOME OF THE COMMON MASONRY
and concrete problems on and
around buildings can be corrected
with simple techniques and a basic
understanding of the materials.
The joints between bricks, blocks,
stone and other masonry building
materials are made with mortar. Mor-
tar is a mixture of cement,lime, sand
and water. The amount of work to be
done and availability of materials
will influence the decision to buy
premixed mortar or to buy the compo-
nents and mix on the site. If it is de-
cided to mix the components on site,
start by buying mortar cement. It is
sold in one cubic foot sacks and has
the cement and lime pre-mixed. A
general purpose mortar combines
one cubic foot of mortar cement with
three cubic feet of sand and enough
water to make it very workable. This
mixture will provide enough material
to lay approximately 330 common
bricks. Most repairs will not require
this much material and one of the
premixed products will serve better
since they are packaged in small
quantities. These products contain
everything except the water. In either
case, it is important to mix the dry
materials thoroughly before adding
the water. Even when the materials
are pre-packed they separate in the
package.
Proper preparation is essential for
good results. When replacing or ad-
ding to brick or block walls make sure
the areas are free of old mortar, dirt
or other loose material. Replacing
missing or cracked joints (repainting)
requires that the old joining be re-
moved to a depth of one inch, in order
to put in enough new mortar to pro-
vide a strong joint.
Concrete Uses
Concrete is a different product and
is used for different purposes. Repair
of sidewalks, patios and driveways
are common uses of concrete. Con-
crete is a mixture of cement, sand,
aggregate (usually crushed stone or
gravel) and water. Concrete can be
purchased as a dry, pre-mix in sacks
in small quantities or as separate ele-
ments and then mixed on site. Con-
crete can also be purchased in large
quantities, pre-mixed, and delivered
by the truck load. The choice of
which way to buy the concrete de-
pends on the amount needed. For av-
erage repairs the pre-mix will be all
that is required. To do large jobs the
choice between mixing on site or hav-
ing it delivered pre-mixed will often
depend on the amount of help avail-
able. There is a limited time in which
to work with the concrete. All cement
products go through a hardening pro-
cess called curing. They do not dry.
The water in the mixture is absorbed
as part of the new compound. Con-
crete starts curing approximately 45
minutes after the water is added, and
to cure properly it should be in place
by then.
A common concrete repair is re-
placement of a broken section of a
sidewalk or driveway. First, remove
the old concrete. If a hammer and
chisel are necessary to do the work
be sure to wear safety goggles. The
new concrete must be placed on a
stable base, so all loose dirt and mat-
erial such as sad or top soil that will
decay and settle should be removed.
For sidewalks the concrete should be
placed at least four inches thick. If
Hardware stores, home centers and
lumber yards all carry a variety of the
materials and tools, such as trowels
and joint strikers, that make the job
easier. Many retailers will answer
questions and make recommenda-
tions, so don't be afraid to ask. Check
the literature racks. There are a lot of
good instructional materials pro-
vided free by manufacturers.D
e
COOPERATIVE
EXTENSION
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
For illustrated fact sheets on Horizon-
tal Concrete send a self-addressed,
stamped envelope to HANDIVAN,
280 Broadway, Room 701, New York,
NY 10007. Mention CITY LIMITS
June 1986.
the hole is deeper as a result of clean- r---:-=----------;----
ing it can be filled with clean stone Wrap-around
or some of the broken concrete, but
leave four inches for the new con- Morlgages
crete.
If too much water was added to the
concrete the free water will come to
the surface. The free water should be
allowed to evaporate before the con-
crete is smoothed for troweling. In hot
weather the concrete should be co-
vered after finishing to prevent the
essential water in the mixture from
evaporating. Keeping the cover wet is
another precaution.
Epoxy Cement
Concrete is not a good repair prod-
uct for filling cracks unless they are
an inch or more wide and four inches
deep, or for filling the surface where
spalling (surface deterioration) has
occurred. Nor is it suitable for filling
worn or uneven areas on steps or
walks. For these situations, the spec-
ialty products such as epoxy cements
should be used. There are also caulk-
ing compounds that can be used to
fill joints and cracks in masonry,
bonding agents to help hold the new
material to the old, and a host of ad-
continued from page 27
that if the banks were making the
loans available he wouldn't be in bus-
iness. But the claim is ingenuine be-
cause unlike banks the wrappers
knowingly make mortgages available
to people who can't afford the prop-
erty.
The wrap mortgagors will also take
their mortgage notes, which are really
nothing more than "lowe you's," and
borrow money against the notes. So
the wrappers are profiting twice from
the same deal. "When you do it to
the degree that you're seeing in many
of these neighborhoods, you're talk-
ing about a lot of profit," declares
Rodriguez.
For real estate speculators, the
wrap-around mortgage has proven an
airtight way to make the most money
on a property with minimal legal re-
sponsibility. For tenants and unsus-
pecting owners, the wrap has proven
a surefire way to deteriorated living
conditions and failed dreams.o
WORKSHOP
WEATHERIZATION DIRECTOR. To supervise State-
funded weatherization program and related energy
conservation programs and projects. Experience in
government-funded programs, income certification
procedures, energy conservation and construction
techniques helpful. Ability to relate to and negotiate
with landlords, contractors, tenants and agency
sources. Good administrative and fiscal skills re-
quired. Contact Mark levy, Flatbush Development
Corporation, 1418 Cortelyou Road, Brooklyn, NY
11226
EXPERIENCED HOUSING ATTORNEY. To serve as
legal director of activist neighborhood tenant rights
organization on lower East Side. Head staff of 6
paralegal organizers. Responsibilities include: Hous-
ing litigation on behalf of tenants and tenant associa-
tions, i.e., drafting legal papers and monitoring land-
lord compliance with court agreements, consulting
with tenant associations, housing agencies and other
groups; work in shelter coalition and litigation. Salary
in mid-twenties, negotiable depending on experience.
Send resume, legal and non-legal writing samples to:
GOlES, PO Box 1003, Cooper Station, New York,
NY 10003.
BOOKKEEPER/CLERICAL SUPPORT. Oversee
building management and fiscal control in conjunction
with building association, prepare reports as required
to HPD, IRS and association officers as well as spec-
ial projects for Pueblo Nuevo related to finance and
management, clerical assistance for organizational
reports. QUALlFCATIONS: previous training and ex-
perience in bookkeeping. Knowledge of housing man-
agement, ability to teach bookkeeping skills, commit-
ment to low-income housing, attention to detail , flex-
ible well organized, lower East Side resident prefer-
red. Spanish/English/Chinese preferred. SALARY:
$14,000 plus benefits. Send resume to Pueblo Nuevo
Housing and Development Association, 125 Pitt
Street, New York, NY 10002, attention Deborah Hum-
phreys.
Kingsbridge Marble Hill Alliance, a non-profit commu-
nity based organization seeks COMMUNITY OR-
GANIZER/HOUSING SPECIALIST. Responsibilities
include working with and providing technical assi-
tance to tenant associations in KMHA boundry area,
prepare tenants, tenant associations and merchants
to negotiate with owners, city finance concerns to get
repairs, secure rehabilitation to bring about changes
for the better, outreach in the neighborhood for the
purpose of understanding residents problems/issues,
and bring residents into KMHA to address and resolve
problems. Also organize local meetings, dealing with
resident concerns, spearheading community follow-
up of meetings. QUALIFICATIONS: assertive, imag-
inative individual committed to your work and pros-
pects of resident empowerment. Experience dealing
with diverse groups, strong writing and verbal skills.
Willingness to get involved with other people's busi-
ness. Salary low teens, deadline early June. Call
KMHA, 549-6555.
- --- - - - - ~ - - - - - - - - - -
June/July 1986 CITY LIMITS 31
COMMUNITY ORGANIZER/HOUSING SPECIAL-
IST. Non-profit neighborhood development corpora-
tion in the northeast Bronx seeks an energetic indi-
vidual to: organize and coordinate tenant associa-
tions, provide, provide assistance to landlords on
availability of loan programs, organize and work with
neighborhood/civic associations, develop and imple-
ment creative neighborhood preservation and promo-
tion projects. REQUIREMENTS: Self-motivated, inde-
pendent worker who is detail oriented and good with
people, possesses strong writing and organizing
skills. Knowledge of New York City housing code, rent
regulations and loan programs helpful. Some evening
work is required. EOE. SALARY: Commensurate with
experience. For more information and to apply for this
position, write to NIDC, 2511 Barker AVenue, New
York, NY 10467.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR. Neighborhood Housing
Services of East Flatbush Inc, a not-for-profit neigh-
borhood development program seeks an Executive
Director. Job requirements include experience in com-
munity organizing, organization managment, staff
supervision. Demonstrated competence in planning
and budgetting. Knowledge of 1 to 4 family housing
rehabilitation and loan packaging. College preferred.
SALARY from $26,000. SEND RESUME by June 12
to: Chairman, NHS of East Flatbush, 3009 Glenwood
Road, Brooklyn, NY 11210. Equal Opportunity Employ-
er.
TENANT/COMMUNITY ORGANIZER ACTIVIST.
Work towards community empowerment on lower
East Side. Will train as paralegal. Good speaking and
writing skills. Some night meetings. $13,000. 533-
2541.
URBAN HOUSING SPECIALIST. Knowledge of co-
oping of small buildings. Experience with develop-
ment packages, building management, and building
surveys. Energetic, self-starter, persistent individual
needed to get job done. Ideal for retired executive.
SALARY: $16,000 to $20,000, plus fringe benefits.
Part time/full time (preferred). Submit resume to:
Greater Ridgewood Restoration Corporation, 810
Fairview Avenue, Ridgewood, New York, NY 11385
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR. NEIGHBORHOOD INITIA-
TIVES DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION seeks an
Executive Director experienced in housing finance,
real estate taxation, marketing, program development
and management. REQUIREMENTS: Candidate
must have a strong ability to deal effectively with com-
munity groups, city/state agencies and a board of
directors. Knowledge of co-op conversion regulations
helpful. Candidate must be innovative and well or-
ganized. M.U.P or related degree. SEND RESUME
AND SALARY REQUIREMENT TO: NIDC, 2511
Barker Avenue, Bronx, NY 10467. Attention M. Bialek.