WORLD WORLDWIDE USA New York NY New York City NYC the city THE CITY News Journal Update - ‘Eco-slumlord’ townhouse hits market, NYCHA bosses, Santos’ seat

 

Dear New Yorkers,

Once a symbol of landlord cruelty, a townhouse at 1214 Dean St. in Crown Heights is about to hit the market through the city’s affordable housing lottery.

It was dubbed the “eco-yogi slumlords” house as tensions spilled over between tenants and the former owners in 2020. Now, a lucky winner of the lottery will be able to call the building — which has undergone a restoration — home.

That’s because of a rare arrangement that let the city Department of Housing and Preservation wrest the house away from the former owners, Gennaro Brooks-Church and Loretta Gendville. As part of a 2022 settlement with the state attorney general, the landmarked townhouse on Dean Street became public property.

Later that year, the house passed from HPD to the nonprofit preservation group Neighborhood Restore for $1. Months of work followed to get it ready for a yet-unknown first-time homebuyer — who will take ownership of the four-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath house for just $678,000.

The property also now includes a rest-stabilized, one-bedroom rental in the basement.

“The person's going to buy the whole house and then they're going to have a rental unit and the rental unit is going to help them pay the mortgage,” said Restore’s executive director Salvatore D’Avola.

Those who want to apply to the lottery for 1214 Dean St. have until March 20 to do so. To help would-be applicants, Neighborhood Restore will hold a virtual information session about the process on March 5, at 6 p.m. For more information about the event, visit the group’s website here.

The Dean Street lottery begins as the city faces its lowest apartment vacancy rate — just 1.4% — in nearly 60 years, underscoring the especially acute scarcity of affordable housing in the five boroughs.

“It’s really life-changing, whoever owns it,” said the site’s project manager, Francesco Mollica.

Read more about the building and its restoration here.

Weather scoop by New York Metro Weather Monday's Weather Rating: 5/10. A decent start, with partly cloudy skies and high temperatures in the upper 40s. Clouds move in late, and we've got a potential winter storm on the way tomorrow. For now, the vibes are all right...

Our Other Top Stories

When law enforcement officials busted 70 mid-level NYCHA bureaucrats on bribery charges last week, they touted the sweep as the biggest single-day takedown in Department of Justice history. It was a very public splash meant to send a clear anti-corruption message. But NYCHA bosses had been warned about the bribery scheme for years — and spurned proposed reforms. The closing days of the special election to replace expelled fabulist George Santos in the increasingly right-leaning House district in eastern Queens and Nassau County, Long Island are approaching. Nassau County legislator Mazi Pilip finally faced off against former Rep. Tom Suozzi in a town hall–style debate last Thursday, after polling showed a neck-and-neck contest, while voters have been deluged with negative ads ahead of Tuesday’s in-person vote. In the latest episode of the FAQ NYC podcast, guest host Richard Kim, THE CITY’s editor in chief, talks to journalists Kai Wright and Lizzy Wright about their Blindspot podcast, which dug into the early years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Listen here.

Reporter’s Notebook

Progress on Black Unemployment

The sky-high unemployment rate for Black New Yorkers, chronicled in a series of stories in THE CITY, declined in the second half of 2023, according to the latest analysis by economist James Parrott at the New School.

The number of Black New Yorkers employed finally passed the pre-pandemic level, as the gap between the white and Black jobless rate narrowed to 5.8 percentage points, from a high of 9.9 percentage points earlier in 2023. Still, the gap is far larger than the 1.6 percentage points nationally.

And the city’s Hispanic workers aren’t faring as well. Their employment rate slid late in 2023 and remains well below the pre-pandemic figure. Parrott believes this is because warehousing and transportation jobs, where Hispanic workers comprise a large percentage of the workforce, fell in the second half. He warns that the restructuring of the city’s economy with fewer face-to-face jobs bodes poorly for Hispanic New Yorkers.

— Greg David

Things To Do

Here’s what’s going on around the city this week.

Wednesday, Feb. 14: A Valentine’s Day screening of “Mahogany,” a 1975 film starring Diana Ross and Billy Dee Williams. Free from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. Thursday, Feb. 15: A conversation at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden on how to join a community garden in your area. Free from 6 to 8 p.m.  Saturday, Feb. 17: Live Mini-Portraits by Manny Vega, a mural and mosaic artist whose work is currently featured in Byzantine Bembé: New York by Manny Vega. The artist will draw portraits of museum-goers for free, which will be displayed for a limited time as part of the exhibition. Free with admission at 1 p.m., at the Museum of the City of New York.

THE KICKER: This year, city lifeguards will get a wage increase to $22 per hour. There’s also a bonus for returning and chief lifeguards who work through peak season.

Thanks, as always, for reading. Make it a great Monday.

Love,

THE CITY

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