About #Save63Tiffany

UPDATE 9-25-24

Landlord Irving Langer has cut off negotiations with the tenants.  After our initial rally the landlord hired Erica Buckley from the world renown law firm Nixon Peabody.  They demanded we sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to stop us from speaking to the press with the pretense that they were going to give us confidential financial information, that never happened. After stringing us along for months and making excuses for not furnishing us with any financial information they, without any provocation, warning or reasoning terminated the MOU on September 24th, 2024.  During the preceding months the tenants association found a local nonprofit preservation buyer who is committed to keeping the building affordable and is ready to make an offer!  We're calling an emergency rally to demand that the landlord come back to the table and negotiate with the tenants, many who predate his ownership of building and have lived here for 30 years, in good faith!   The 63 Tiffany Tenants Association along with the preservation buyer are confident that we can come to a mutually beneficial resolution with Mr.Langer.  

We are also demanding that the city and state pass Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA) and Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA).  These commonsense tenant protections would ensure that other New York tenants do not go through what we are going through.  

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I'd like to share our story, about how our landlord Irving Langer, who was identified as the #2nd Highest Evictor in the city & was featured on the Public Advocate's "List of Worst Landlords" multiple times, strikes again, while the city, state and federal agencies stand idly by and turn a blind eye to this housing injustice actually this is so much more, this is an atrocity.  A story about how low income families are being evicted from their homes after 30 years, just so this man can make a few extra millions, that because of his vast wealth already, will not change his life one bit, but will destroy 70 families in the process.  This is what "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer" actually looks like, in real time.  70 more homeless families just so another member of the 1% can hoard even more millions.  Where's the good in that?  How does that benefit society as a whole?   But this doesn't have to happen.  Mr. Langer can easily choose to do the right thing here and still make an incredible return on his investment, and we can all live happily ever after.  

We have lived at 63 Tiffany Place, a 70 unit low income building in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn for close to 30 years, and now because of a greedy, predatory landlord, we are at risk of being forced to pay outrageous rent increases, that we simply cannot afford, and/or be evicted.  Our building was actually written about in the NY Times, when we first moved in, as a glowing example of these great tax programs that allowed working, low income NYers, like us, to live in these shiny new buildings.  However now as these tax credit programs are about to expire in December of 2023, these very tenants will be forced out of their homes, homes that they've lived in for decades, all so a multi-millionaire slumlord can become even richer.  Residents that moved in in their 40s, 50s and 60s are currently in their 70s, 80s and even 90s, many with health issues and disabilities, where will they go now?  

In this building we have a wonderful, eclectic group of neighbors from every race and ethnicity. We have whites, blacks, browns and Asians.  Many are retired but many are also still actively working.  Because of our advancing ages many of us have health issues or are disabled.  We have civil service employees, quite a few hospital workers, an x-ray tech, a couple of nurses, a security guard, a warehouse employee, a doctor’s assistant, a singer, a teacher and part time actor, a chef, a classical artist, a veterinarian assistant, a union labor organizer, a financial analyst assistant, a sound engineer, a real estate administrative assistant, a cosmetologist who also founded a non-profit Lupus organization, a former olympic gold medalist with her own youth foundation, a few secretaries, a graphic artist, a DJ, a few laborers and so on.  If you notice many of these titles were the essential workers everyone applauded during Covid.  While many essential workers don’t earn the greatest salaries you can always count on them, they risked their lives and kept this city running when everyone else stayed home.  It turns out that they too need, and deserve, a place to live.  We also have many retirees, some who unfortunately have health issues and/or disabilities, like one who after years of dialysis finally had a kidney transplant earlier this year, another one who’s battling with MS.  Many others struggle with diabetes, heart failure, cancer, autism and countless other ailments.  One neighbor just had a stroke and is currently struggling to learn how to walk again, God bless him.  One retiree is currently the NYPD chaplain and part of the community board for our neighborhood precinct, the 76th.  We also lost a few building residents that should get honorable mentions, Rudy and Tuffy.  Rudy Jones was a military vet and highly decorated retired NYPD captain and 9/11 hero, who suddenly died last year after neighbors saw him struggling up the stairs to his 8th floor apartment because, as is case far too often, the elevators weren’t working.  I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention the late, great Jose “Tuffy” Sanchez who was a Korean War veteran and legend for his community activism in this neighborhood.  So much so, that in 2015 he had the distinction of having the corner of Columbia & Union St renamed in his honor, where his organization once stood (2 blocks away from 63 Tiffany).  This was in recognition for the amazing work he did in this community and beyond.  Tuffy’s family has lived in this neighborhood since the 1920s.  Tuffy’s son still lives in the building but Tuffy’s granddaughter was just forced out by this landlord a couple of months ago, after living here for many years.  These are just the ones I remember, off the top of my head, but the point is to illustrate that we have a wonderful mosaic of beautiful people living in this building, many essential workers, many seniors, many sick or disabled, but all good, decent people who have contributed to society, good people that will be facing eviction if this landlord has his way and that’s just not right.  Our only misfortune is that we’re not wealthy.   

When we moved into this building this was a desolate area and nobody truly wanted to live here. In fact our building’s conversion from a failed condominium into low-income affordable rental housing is part of that story.  An April 14, 1991 NY Times article described it like this, “one sign of it is the struggle of a 70-unit converted warehouse called 63 Tiffany Place to sell half its units so that a condominium plan can be declared effective and buyers moved in. The developer, the Cuneo-Leider Management and Development Corporation, has meanwhile put two other condominium conversion plans on hold,” they never sold. There was even a proposal to turn this building into a permanent housing for the homeless but because of community opposition that plan never developed.  Finally real estate giant Related Companies bought this building for $4 million at a bank foreclosure auction, and entered into a tax agreement in order to subsidize this unprofitable property.  In exchange for these subsidies they had to rent these apartments to low income working NYers.  There were stringent income requirements to get into this building, every qualified tenant had to be working and and meet minimum income requirements, so these were not handouts.  These apartments were designated for low income, working NYers.  In reality, Related really had no choice but to enter into this agreement because no one wanted to move to this area – but because of the affordable rent and our financial situations we moved in and helped to create the vibrant, desirable community that it is today.  It's important to note that years after we moved in, two other warehouses, the one adjacent to us (29 Tiffany) and the one right across from us (60 Tiffany) were converted into luxury condos.  We were definitely part of the comeback of this block and the community in general.  When we first moved here you couldn't walk around at night without feeling unsafe, now it's common to see people walking their dogs after midnight.  The Columbia St Waterfront District was full of vacant storefronts and now there’s amazing restaurants and many other thriving businesses.  In fact, here's a NYTimes article of a shantytown just a couple of blocks away (where drugs were being sold openly) that burned down, killing two people, in 1994, the year we moved into our apartments.  It’s beautiful here now, but I assure you that wasn’t the case 30 years ago when we moved here.  

Then around 2010 we were surprised to learn that the building was sold and this was when our problems started.  After our new landlord Irving Langer purchased the building, the quality of repairs and services deteriorated and within a few years management stopped renewing our leases altogether.  With the exception of a handful of tenants most of us have not received a new lease for close to 10 years now.  

Based on E&M’s website and several news articles about their practices, it seems that Irving Langer is a slumlord that routinely buys properties like this to “flip”.  His whole business model is to buy these types of properties, evict the current tenants and convert them to market rate.  In fact this is the way they describe it on their website, “the company specializes in creative solutions to complex real estate deal executions. The Langer Co, excels at extracting the most dollars out of value-add properties that other landlords have struggled with”, that's just a nice way of saying they “extract” tenants out that other landlords won’t, or can’t.  So if you have a property with tenants that you need to evict, to maximize its value, call Irving Langer and company, they have “creative solutions” to get them out.  He has long been known as a slumlord, with the Right to Counsel Coalition finding he has the  second highest eviction rate in the city in 2019, and he also had the dubious distinction to make it on the “Public Advocate’s “worst landlords” list multiple times.  It seems this is his M.O., to buy buildings like this, evict legacy tenants and reap the financial rewards.  In a case that parallels ours almost exactly, Mr. Langer bought The Dunbar in Manhattan and harassed, drove out and/or evicted the existing tenants so he could raise the rents.  Here’s how the NY Times described it in a 2018 special report entitled, Unsheltered: The Eviction Machine Churning Through New York City: 

“E&M Associates, which bought the complex in 2013 after a foreclosure on Pinnacle’s mortgage. And with Harlem a real estate hot zone, E&M has worked to remake the Dunbar, pushing out longtime tenants, remodeling vacant apartments and charging far higher rents.

The churn and renovation have left the Dunbar in turmoil, divided between old tenants and new, and sometimes between black and white. To some longtime residents, the fresh paint and gleaming appliances installed next door signify that the landlord is letting their own homes decay to drive them out.

“I’m gonna put it to you straight: They want the black folks to move out,” said Lynette Williams, 80, who has lived in the Dunbar for 21 years. “Because the white people can come in and pay more.”  Through a web of limited liability companies, E&M has an ownership interest in at least 90 New York buildings with regulated apartments, property records show. Until recently, a section of its website aimed at investors boasted that E&M approached every property “from an investor’s point of view, seeking to understand the underlying intrinsic value of the property, as well as the steps that must be taken to unlock that value.”

This NY Times special report details exactly how ruthless Mr. Langer’s E&M Associates is and gives specific details of how his lawyers have exploited and manipulated the court system to their advantage. I advise you to read it. Currently the residents of 1833 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, another one of Langer’s properties, have initiated a rent strike and are suing him due to a deadly fire “that killed three people, including a mother and her 4-year-old daughter”.  They alleged that the landlord has a history of failing to comply with fire safety and housing maintenance regulations. 

For years we’ve requested numerous meetings with Mr.Langer, through calls, letters and various other channels, in hopes of coming to an amicable agreement or resolution, but to no avail.  .

Throughout these years we have all paid our rent on time (even through the pandemic), we've been good citizens and we helped build this beautiful community into what it is today and to force us out now, at this age, to create this hardship on us, is immoral, if not illegal.  The tax credit program ends this December and in anticipation of this dreadful date we have been fighting this injustice for years.  We are asking for assistance in our fight and we are happy to say that we have received overwhelming support from Ben Googins from the Carroll Gardens Association (CGA), who has been assisting us for years, the folks at Takeroot Justice, our Councilwoman Shahana Hanif, NYS Assemblywoman JoAnne Simon,  State Senator Andrew Gounardes, City Comptroller Brad Lander, and the Brooklyn Borough President's office.  They have all not only pledged their support but have taken a vested interest and participated in weekly meetings with the Tenant's Association and various city, state and even federal agencies to try to find a resolution to this travesty.  Councilwoman Hanif has personally visited our building on several occasions to assist us and voice her solidarity, even using her social media to bring attention to our cause.  But our struggle doesn't end with us, first of all Mr.Langer is doing this with various buildings he owns and those tenants are facing a similar fate.  Secondly, we would also like to raise awareness of the city, state and federal agencies that are allowing this travesty to happen. We're also fighting for the need for more protections for all NYC tenants, from these predatory, unscrupulous landlords, with laws like the Good Cause legislation.  Hardworking NYers who have lived in a building and paid their rent on time for 3 decades should never face homelessness just so a multi multi-millionaire can make a few extra bucks.  We'd also like to bring attention of the people who are currently being offered low income apartments through programs like the city's Housing Connect program, people who will, much like us, naively move into these apartments and not realize the problems they will face when their tax credit programs expire.  We are fighting housing injustice on behalf of all tenants that are in similar situations. 

I believe this is not only a general interest story but more importantly a cautionary tale so others are not blindsided the way we were.  A story of how rich, greedy landlords are gaming the system, using programs designed to help the working class to instead subsidize their properties with the plan to ultimately leave these decades-long tenants homeless and now priced out of the NYC housing market. Of how Signature Bank's recent collapse was in no small part due to the unsavory loans they were issuing to these unscrupulous landlords.  How in the end no one benefits from these current tax credit programs but the people who least need it, millionaires, and in this case a multi multi millionaire slumlord.  This is a story of gentrification, of NYC's out of control rents and the loss of affordable housing for lifelong NYers, many disabled, or in their senior years.  A story of how a building once heralded in the NYTimes as an example of the advantages of these great tax credit programs, developed to help working class low income NYers, is now going to be the cause of their eviction, to make room for more affluent tenants.  This is also a possible learning experience for today's politicians, because while these programs sounded wonderful 15-30 years ago it's proven now, the original intent of helping these working low income NYers, most in need, is actually harming them years later.  The well intentioned sponsors of these tax programs lacked the foresight to realize that eventually, when it came to an end, what would happen to these families still left in these buildings?  So, as you can see, this is a story with many angles that can be expounded upon.  

In conclusion, there are going to be naysayers that will say at least we got to benefit from this program for these years, to them I say that knowing what I know now, and the fate that's coming to us, the real likelihood of not only being homeless, but also now being priced out of NYC, I wish I would've never moved here.  That's a hard and painful thing for me to say because I love my home, I love my neighbors and this community, and what we've built here, but bear in mind that at the time when we first moved in, close to 30 years ago in 1994, our rent was $604 (it's about double that now) and while that was pretty decent for a new apartment at the time, it's important to note that according to the Rent Guidelines Board's own "1994 Income and Expense Study", "the average rent collected by owners was $521`per unit.  Collections in the older pre-war stock were $468 while the average rent for Post '46 units was $664".   In fact, Carroll Gardens Association was renting “one-bedrooms for $351 a month; the two-bedrooms for $422 a month” to low income NYers in 1992,  right around the corner on Columbia Street.  So while in 2023 numbers our initial rent sounds amazing it was actually within median range in 1994, and consider that if we would've moved into a regular rent stabilized building, without this tax program, we would still be paying about the same amount we're paying now but most importantly we’d be protected by rent stabilization laws and not facing eviction now.  So how did this really benefit us?  Once again the only real beneficiaries of these tax programs are the rich landlords, who's business model is to use the poorest and most disadvantaged NYers to get these tax breaks and then kick them out and cash in.  I'm not against landlords profiting from their investments but it shouldn't be by using taxpayer money and then leaving families homeless at the end.  This is wrong and we, as a city, need to find a better, more equitable, solution to these problems.  

It’s inconceivable that at a time when so much attention is being given to the current state of NYC’s lack of affordable housing and the urgency to build new low income housing that this one cannot be saved or at the very least to allow the current tenants to continue to live here, in dignity, for their final days.  The whole building is in a state of panic, not knowing what is going to happen or what the future holds for them.  We are currently “housing insecure” and that’s a terrible burden to carry everyday, for years now.  It’s really affecting the mental state of many of the tenants.  Any time we see each other the talk is about what’s going to happen to us.  In the last couple of months at least three tenants have broken down and started crying, right in front of the building, while talking to me about this situation and our uncertain future.  This is so wrong, I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy, not even a slumlord like Irving Langer living in a multi-million dollar mansion in Long Island.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Irving Langer

Note: This picture is unedited, from his son, Michael Langer’s Facebook Page.

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