Home > Blogs > Jeffrey Ditri > JAD Realty Group

Illegal Conversion Boots Tenants From 1182 Broadway

By Jeffrey Ditri

Real Estate Broker/Owner with JAD Realty Group, LLC.

March 11, 2010 02:06 AM

Our tipline has been abuzz this morning with rumors that all tenants were evacuated yesterday from rental building 1182 Broadway. We checked with the Department of Buildings—which has one "work without permit" violation posted for the property—to get the full story. And that is? A DOB spokesperson tells us the agency investigated after anonymous complaints and found that the property was illegally converted from a 16-floor manufacturing building into residential apartments. The building had no fire sprinklers, no secondary exit, and only one stairwell, which could trap tenants in the building in the event of a fire, so the DOB slapped owner Mocal Enterprises with violations for converting the building without a permit and for occupancy contrary to DOB regulations. According to DOB, tenants were evacuated with the aid of city agencies and the Red Cross. So who called in the complaint? That's the big question. The grungy neighborhood (WhoDi to us) has been branded the "next big thing" thanks to a crop of new luxury boutique hotels opening in the area. The hipsterest of them all, the Ace Hotel, is right next door.

We hunted up a few old listings for the building, where rents appear to have ranged from $2,900 to $6,000. According to one description, here's what that money would have gotten you:

Zoned as a live-work space, this renovated loft offers an industrial vision of New York that is fast disappearing...Featuring free laundry on every floor and bathrooms big enough to fit a mini-Cooper in, these apartments also offer massive closets and giant pewter windows. If you are looking for Zen gardens and tenant lounges then this building is not for you. But if a taste of raw space - think concrete floors in some units and spectacular wrap around antique windows in the two-bedroom units - makes your artistic juices start to flow, then this might do the trick.

Comments(3)

Comment

Show All Comments

Sort:

Anonymous

David Cohen

We had a few requests today for moving crews... We sent a few trucks out and we'll have more available tomorrow and in the next few days to move people out...
The owner of Divine Moving (http://www.divinemoving.com ) is giving anyone from 1182 Broadway a free month of storage until they can find a new apartment.

Mar 11, 2010 02:27 AM

Anonymous

Tyler A. Chase

Forced Eviction under Any Guise is a Human Rights Violation

Tyler A. Chase, L’ORAGE Productions, Film maker and Activist, Member of the Panel on Housing in the February 26^th UPR Meeting at Columbia University

Introduction

This report covers the period between 2007 and 2010 and exposes the technique employed by government officials, corporations and agencies to practice forced eviction on both home owners and renters in Brooklyn, NY. It is based on live filmed interviews, legal and/or written documents, literature and first hand observations. Evidence to back this report is included in footage that is part of a film currently in productions. Although the report is primarily based on studies from Brooklyn, forced evictions have been carried out in all of New York boroughs, Queens, the Bronx, as with the Tribeca and Soho areas of New York City that were primarily inhabited by working class, artists and the poor. In Brooklyn forced and preemptive evictions of large amounts of people simultaneously took place in Dumbo and the same style of forced eviction are still taking place with the blessing of the current administration. Some of the policies that would end this problem have to do with putting a ceiling on rents, changing occupancy laws, stopping the privatization of affordable housing (so it is affordable to people who have tenure of each community), changing loft laws and work/living space laws that would allow people (particularly artists and craftsmen) of moderate income to work and live in the same space. They also need to stop pre emptive evictions immediately since the results of the evictions are more damaging to the people involved then the “emergency” conditions that are purported to exist.

WHAT IS FORCED EVICTION?

PREEMPTIVE: taken as a measure against something anticipated, or feared; preventive; deterrent: a preemptive tactic.

PREEMPTIVE EVICTION

The forced evictions that are so prevalent are preemptive. How is it possible to get a family out of a building they owned for twenty eight years and do it in one day as what happened at the Broken Angel to Arthur and Cynthia Wood? How is it possible to force 300 people out of the building they have lived in for ten years, and built into habitable apartments as with the Kent building?

People are pulled from their homes because there may be a blazing fire or there may be an explosion or you may trip over your own carpet and die. There were no blazing fires or floods that caused the evictions of the people of the Broken Angel and Kent building from their homes. Pre emptive eviction has been used effectively and frequently for years. The Troutman evictions in Brooklyn saw the eviction of 150 people. The Fire Department, hand in hand with the Office of Emergency Management, the Police Department and of course the Department of Buildings work together to carry out this shock and awe technique of eviction. The scenario may be like this: the Department of Buildings or the Fire Department discovers a danger in your building, and in most cases one that has been in front of their noses for years, and then come the experts who swear that the danger is imminent. You may at one point be able to supply experts (if you can afford them) with equal expertise but they do not count against the “officials”. The next step is the urgency of it. Swarms of officials (Department of Buildings, Red Cross, Police, Office of Emergency Management and the Fire Department.) appear sometimes making it hard to follow the orders to vacate since they are everywhere (as with the Kent building). You may or may not be handed a pink slip (listing the reasons you are being thrown out) that you cannot argue with. The Firemen come with battering rams and break down apartment doors of those residents who aren’t home or drag the victim you out if you don’t agree to leave. Your pets wander about in the mayhem. Although there isn’t a fire the firemen wield axes and hammers. You experience a home invasion as they come into your dwelling to make sure you leave. You are loaded onto the nearest sidewalk. You are homeless.

DIRECT VIOLATION of the BILL of HUMAN RIGHTS

Article 9 of the International Bill of Human Rights states: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

1. The practice of forced eviction involves the involuntary often aggressive removal of persons, families and groups from their homes and communities. This results in homelessness for people who otherwise would not be homeless. It also results in inadequate housing and living conditions.

2. In cases of forced eviction, Governments, especially on the city level, are often actively involved in the actual movement of people from their homes. This has to do with a system devoid of humanism and steeped in profit and election interests.

This happens because Judges and Building officials are involved with developers and proprietors, a conflict of interest that leans toward developers and forgo their obligations to the public in favor of those who they think bring more profit into the city (albeit at the expense of the communities and culture of those they are supposed to serve.)

Article 10: Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of is rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

3. There is the use of force, threat and coercion involved in forced evictions. There are unwarranted arrests or the threat of arrest. There are often battering rams. There are multiple agencies like Police, Fire Department and the Office of Emergency Management and the Department of Buildings. There is an embarrassing scene to make the victim feel hopeless, small, and weak. They are told to leave or face jail time without due process.

Article 5: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

4. The victims and surrounding communities of forced and preemptive evictions suffer irreparable psychological harm. As Mindy Fullilove suggests in her book “Root Shock”, they are uprooted like a plant from the nurturing and familiar surroundings and never recover. The community also suffers when a familiar building or neighbor is evicted. The suffering induced by forced evictions is paramount to cruel and unusual punishment in their very nature.

8. Article 12 : No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference and attacks.

Article 25: Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood....

In forced evictions, particularly preemptive evictions, the media often aids in the abuse of eviction victims by carrying out character assassinations. There seems to be a pattern where no eviction is carried out without some form of public justification to legitimize the eviction especially when it involves many people. The rationales from hired experts that appear in the news create sympathy for the evictor, while alienating the evicted. Often the media will bring up some kind of past event that paints the person as undesirable or coin a word to describe them. In the case of the Troutman building, the word Hipster was used. This kind of process was called ’bulldozer justice’ by retired Indian Supreme Court Justice Krishna Iyer.

Local papers called Arthur Wood a “scofflaw” and painted him as crazy. In reality he is a visionary artist and a veteran of the American Air Force as an Engineer. He is also a father and grandfather and husband of fifty five years. There are the “experts” that the media interviews who are paid or gain momentary fame by participating in rationalizing the actions of the government and local agencies. These experts are commissioned to condone these evictions. Often they have never been heard of except in that single news cast but nevertheless they are deemed expert, infallible and the fate of the eviction victim is sealed by the mob mentality.

RETALIATION?

8. Forced evictions often involve the irreparable demolition or traumatic damage of the homes of affected persons as was the case with The Broken Angel, sometimes as a form of punishment for past grudges. i.e. Arthur Wood of the Broken Angel had won a court case against the Department of Buildings in the 1980’s and years later after a small fire on the top of his building they used that “to get their foot in the door” (Cynthia Wood quote) They managed to reuse the same case, won in the 1980’s by the Woods to take them from their home of twenty eight years. It appears that the actions taken against the Woods were retaliatory for many reasons. In attempting to rebuild the building, architect Brent Porter’s plans were always rejected no matter what and the developer (also an expediter) stated that he “had never seen anything like how they (The Department of Buildings) hated Arthur” and kept putting work stops on their permits. Whether or not that is true, the fact is that years later the construction is stopped with not one condo completed. Even during the time of Cynthias’ illness the same inspector was going to the building for arbitrary spot inspections and no matter what remedies Arthur did to the building they are not reflected in the Department of Buildings records. In other words the Woods were doomed to failure. Shahn Anderson, the Developer who partnered himself with Arthur Wood at the Broken Angel Building at the persuasion of Council Woman Letitia James, laughingly stated that the “Department of Buildings hates Arthur”. He said that he had never seen them carry out such strong measures against anyone. There was speculation that this targeting was because the Woods had won a case against the city in the eighties for unlawful building. When you consider the unusual lack of decorum of the officials and the unusual court procedures that took place in the Broken Angel then there may be some logic to this hypothesis. Let me first tell you about the outrageous “hearing” on the upper floors of the building in 2007, whereby the judge and entourage of almost thirty people ventured to the top floors of the “dangerous” Broken Angel building to conduct a legal court procedure. One might wonder at the judgment of the judge who endangered the lives of so many people by venturing onto the top of the building that was reported to be an imminent danger and which she at the behest of the Department of Buildings, condemned to be dismantled. Despite the engineer engaged by Mr. Wood and others, the city agency prevailed and the building was ordered torn down to its original state. This horrible action destroyed the widely regarded piece of art work and the home of a family who had lived there for 28 years. If it had been a wealthier person or someone who had relatives in high places it would not have happened. It made the Woods homeless, but that wasn’t enough for the Department of Buildings who despite the demolition being carried out still harasses the elderly Mr. Wood by regular visits despite his efforts.

In 2009 one of these inspectors deemed that the last remaining wall on the top of the building, with stained glass windows, was supported by rotten wooden beams and that it was a danger. This was a lie and one for which he would be reprimanded by the Judge later. His other lie was that the fire that years ago was fifty feet way from the wall had somehow affected it. The same Judge appeared with court stenographer in tow, police and two city officials, to judge if the wall that Arthur had on the roof with stained glass windows was a danger. The inspectors made outrageous accusations stating that the burnt section, long since removed, along with the rest of the 60 feet had destabilized the remaining wall which was sixty feet below and also clear across to the other side. Of course Arthur could not afford an engineer and if he had it is safe to say that he would not win against the city officials since they had proved time and again that they are considered infallible. Arthur was forced to hire yet another construction firm to take his own wall down at a huge cost and despite the loss of his artwork and the clearing of the violations they remain on the city’s violation data base. Later fines were heaped on the Woods along with an outrageous increase in taxes.

In the case of 475 Kent, the proprietor owned another building in which a fireman died while fighting a fire before the eviction incident and it appeared as if the Fire Department was targeting the building for that reason. I say this because the Matzo Factory in the basement was there for more then ten years and had been inspected multiple times by the Fire Department. The Fire Department was in fact at fault for not reporting the factory years before. The tenants of the Kent building, many with ten year leases, were banned from their units and had to wait until the proprietor authorized a sprinkler system. Like the Broken Angel building the enforcement of this issue was ludicrous given that the building is made of concrete and had an old sprinkler system that simply could have been removed completely prior to the forced evictions. Had the old sprinkler system been removed prior to the brouhaha, there would have been nothing to force them to install a new one. The tenants waited for three months to live in their homes again and when they returned they were faced with a terrible filthy mess from the sprinkler installation in each of the units. They had to clean their own home although the responsibility for the damage belonged to the proprietor who owned the offending Matzo factory.

5. Eviction orders, may or may not precede or accompany the practice of forced eviction. In the case of preemptive eviction the authorities used the “emergency ploy” to carry this shock and awe practice leaving the tenant without recourse but to comply.

6. Although there is only a chance of emergency and no active emergency that would merit creating a situation of homelessness, the local government creates fear and rationalizes their actions through the media so the population condones their actions.

DETAILS OF THE ACCUSATIONS

In the case of the Broken Angel building owned by Arthur and the late, Cynthia Wood, city administrators deemed the building was unsafe due to a small fire on the very top of one area of the building. The Woods were arrested after the streets were cordoned off and occupied by seven police cars and some with battering rams. The Buildings Departments’ representative knew that they had no place to go and he knew that the building was safe otherwise he would not have joined a Judge and almost thirty people at the top of the same building for a legal procedure that looks like it came straight out of a comic book. If the building was an imminent danger to the community and the Woods then why in 2007 did a Judge and approximately thirty people converge on the top floors of the same building to conduct a trial? The forced eviction of the Woods was illegal and damaging to the health and welfare of not only the Woods but of the community who had viewed the building as a landmark for 28 years. The case was absurd by any standard of logic and it was their accusations and the judge changing her decision to fit that of the Department of Buildings that caused that property to be dismantled. The Woods had all the necessary documents to prove their legal ownership of the properties involved. Despite that, the owners were neither compensated nor offered alternative space. They have ended up homeless and Cynthia Wood is now dead.

VIOLATIONS OF THE CONSTITUTION AND THE HUMAN RIGHTS DECLARATION

In 1776, the United States Declaration of Independence declared that all men are endowed with certain inalienable rights, and that "among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".

The Declaration of Independence is mirrored in Article 3 of the Declaration of Human Rights: Everyone has the right to life, liberty and the security of person.

Cynthia Wood knew this and stated: “What happened to our inalienable rights, of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They don’t exist.”

She said: “they have had good examples like in Europe with the Nazis.” She claimed that she was “terrified and did not trust police” and that she didn’t know “where she would end up in a year or two”.

She was right. Forced eviction is not only a Human Rights Violation but a Constitutional Rights Violation: Article 8 Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law;

Forced eviction especially done preemptively, is against the United States Constitution and its Amendments. The Constitutional Amendments that should protect against Forced Eviction are:

Amendment IV
(Privacy of the Person and Possessions)
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Liberty Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
No State shall... deprive any person of life, liberty, or property,
without due process of law.

Human Rights Declaration - Article 17: Everyone has the right to own property….No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Forced Eviction, as a means to protect citizens simplifies evictions and there is no regard for even the Supreme Law (The Constitution) of the United States.

There is also a law that states that a tenant who is put out of his/her apartment in a forcible or unlawful manner is entitled to recover triple damages in a legal action against the wrongdoer. Landlords in New York City who use illegal methods to force a tenant to move are also subject to both criminal and civil penalties. Further, the tenant is entitled to be restored to occupancy. (RPAPL §713, §853)

When Arthur Wood filed a lawsuit against the city for abuse of process, unlawful search and entry without a warrant, arrest without Miranda rights or a warrant, seizure of property without a warrant and false arrest, the case was immediately dismissed and he was never afforded a trial and thusly his Constitutional Rights were again violated and that law being the right to justice.

The American Constitution protects the right to privacy and property, the yet the city continuously reviews the legality of ownership. The public servants breach that fundamental Constitutional right. Thus, the private owners are damaged and the inviolability of property is not guaranteed.

The General Comment No. 7:

Member states should establish a legal framework that conforms with international human rights standards, to ensure effective protection against unlawful forced and collective evictions and to control strictly the circumstances in which legal evictions may be carried out. In the case of lawful evictions, Roma must be provided with appropriate alternative accommodation, if needed, except in cases of force majeure. Legislation should also strictly define the procedures for legal eviction, and such legislation should comply with international human rights standards and principles, including those

articulated in General Comment No. 7 on forced evictions of the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural rights. Such measures shall include consultation with the community or individual concerned, reasonable notice, provision of information, a guarantee that the eviction will be carried out in a reasonable manner, effective legal remedies and free or low cost legal assistance for the persons concerned.

REMEDIES TO PREEMPTIVE AND FORCED EVICTION

We should look to Quebec, Canada in respects to how it handled the great ice storm in the 1998. The army was called in and emergency shelters were set up and then the people were evacuated AT THEIR OWN CONSENT. The results were that communities pulled together and people stayed with each other so they could check on their own domiciles and had freedom of movement. There was no electricity and below zero cold with roofs caving in with the weight of the ice. I know because my sister who has leukemia was there and she refused to go to a shelter. The volunteers and authorities came back several times to check on her but did not force her to leave. Many did leave their homes to the well managed and clean shelter and schools. No one was permanently barred from reentering their homes as what happened with the victims of the destroyed levees during Hurricane Katrina.

These principles are perhaps best captured in the draft Principles on Housing and Property Restitution for Refugees and Displaced Persons, which states in

part:125

2.1 All refugees and displaced persons have the right to have restored to them any

housing, land and/or property of which they were arbitrarily or unlawfully deprived, or to be compensated for any housing, land and/or property…

The obligation of States to refrain from, and protect against, forced evictions from home(s) and land arises from several international legal instruments including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (art. 11, para. 1), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (art. 27, para.

In its resolution 1993/77, the Commission on Human Rights stated that the "practice of forced eviction constitutes a gross violation of human rights, in particular the right to adequate housing". In 1977, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights issued its General Comment No. 7 on forced evictions.

9. Article 2.1 of the Covenant requires States parties to use "all appropriate means", including the adoption of legislative measures, to promote all the rights protected under the Covenant. Although the Committee has indicated in its General Comment No. 3 (1990) that such measures may not be indispensable in relation to all rights, it is clear that legislation against forced evictions is an essential basis upon which to build a system of effective protection. Such legislation should include measures which (a) provide the greatest possible security of tenure to occupiers of houses and land, (b) conform to the Covenant and (c) are designed to control strictly the circumstances under which evictions may be carried out. The legislation must also apply to all agents acting under the authority of the State or who are accountable to it. Moreover, in view of the increasing trend in some States towards the Government greatly reducing its responsibilities in the housing sector, States parties must ensure that legislative and other measures are adequate to prevent and, if appropriate, punish forced evictions carried out, without appropriate safeguards, by private persons or bodies. States parties should therefore review relevant legislation and policies to ensure that they are compatible with the obligations arising from the right to adequate housing and repeal or amend any legislation or policies that are inconsistent with the requirements of the Covenant.

2. Forced eviction and house demolition as a punitive measure are also inconsistent with the norms of the Covenant. Likewise, the Committee takes note of the obligations enshrined in the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and Protocols thereto of 1977 concerning prohibitions on the displacement of the civilian population and the destruction of private property as these relate to the practice of forced eviction.

Appropriate procedural protection and due process are essential aspects of all human rights but are especially pertinent in relation to a matter such as forced evictions which directly invokes a large number of the rights recognized in both the International Covenants on Human Rights. The Committee considers that the procedural protections which should be applied in relation to forced evictions include: (a) an opportunity for genuine consultation with those affected; (b) adequate and reasonable notice for all affected persons prior to the scheduled date of eviction; (c) information on the proposed evictions, and, where applicable, on the alternative purpose for which the land or housing is to be used, to be made available in reasonable time to all those affected; (d) especially where groups of people are involved, government officials or their representatives to be present during an eviction; (e) all persons carrying out the eviction to be properly identified; (f) evictions not to take place in particularly bad weather or at night unless the affected persons consent otherwise; (g) provision of legal remedies; and (h) provision, where possible, of legal aid to persons who are in need of it to seek redress from the courts.

Evictions should not result in individuals being rendered homeless or vulnerable to the violation of other human rights. Where those affected are unable to provide for themselves, the State party must take all appropriate measures, to the maximum of its available resources, to ensure that adequate alternative housing, resettlement or access to productive land, as the case may be, is available.

Evictions must be carried out lawfully, only in exceptional circumstances, and in full accordance with relevant provisions of international human rights and humanitarian law. In the United States, victims of forced eviction can only resort to due process or equal protection provisions.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you to Shula Koenig, Executive Director of The People's Movement for Human Rights Education for giving me the International Bill of Human Rights, Fact sheet No: 2 (Rev.1) and for her wonderful interview that was filmed, A Castle in Brooklyn, King Arthur and the Serfdom of Kent.

Thank you to Lisette Cevallos who supports my working on this project and who has up to now had the financial burden of the film, A Castle in Brooklyn, King Arthur and the Serfdom of Kent.

Thank you to the L’ORAGE Ltd., a company dedicated to the arts and to the support of the preservation and pride of all culture.

Thank you to my parents, Clement Cabana and Mary Croteau who fought for civil rights and taught me to judge a person by their character, not by the color of their skin and who kept our family together with their incredible musical talent.

Mar 15, 2010 11:33 AM

Anonymous

bullshit alert

FYI, to anyone that happens to come across this little blog: the above rant was posted by someone who stole her film footage and concept from Margot Niederland, director of "Broken Angel."

Apr 13, 2010 03:21 AM

Older Post

Newer Post

Illegal Conversion Boots Tenants From 1182 Broadway

Comments(3)

Jeffrey Ditri

Service Areas

Real Estate Resources