Glimmers of Hope for 475 Kent Residents
Residents of 475 Kent Avenue are pitching in to fix the Williamsburg building’s many safety violations—chief among them a broken sprinkler system—so that the city lets them back into their building, according to a story in yesterday’s Times. The city estimated that the sprinkler system would take around three months to fix, and the residents…
Residents of 475 Kent Avenue are pitching in to fix the Williamsburg building’s many safety violations—chief among them a broken sprinkler system—so that the city lets them back into their building, according to a story in yesterday’s Times. The city estimated that the sprinkler system would take around three months to fix, and the residents are trying to expedite the repairs. Nevertheless, the 200-plus people booted from the artists’ enclave last month may eventually be allowed to move back in despite the fact that the building still doesn’t have a C of O for residential use, and the article says that 475 Kent owners Nachman Brach and Morris Hartman have been devastated by its evacuation. (This seems contrary to the rumors that Brach & Co. want to convert the building into pricey condos.) A number of 475 Kent residents say they want to wait out the repairs and move back in to their former home because there aren’t many properties that can compare to it. All the new construction is tiny, very cookie-cutter, very clean and hygienic. You could almost smell the pharmacy, said Hagai Yardenay, a videographer who lived on the eighth floor. This building is a lot more grungy, but it’s real. It’s magical. It’s different. You can’t replicate it.
After Evacuation, Artists Begin an Effort to Save Their Haven [NY Times]
475 Kent Tenants to Bloomberg: Let Us Back In! [Brownstoner]
DOB, FDNY Deliver Bad News to 475 Kent Tenants [Brownstoner]
DOB, FDNY Deliver Bad News to 475 Kent Tenants [Brownstoner]
475 Kent Avenue: How It All Began [Brownstoner] GMAP
Big Showing From Pols at 475 Kent Vigil [Brownstoner]
Closing Bell: Moving Out at 475 Kent Avenue [Brownstoner]
‘Commune of Creative Types’ in the Burg is Emptied Out [Brownstoner]
Photo by BruceLabounty802.
Collecting rent, and utilizing a property for residential purposes without a valid Certificate of Occupancy is certainly not legal. The sprinkler system and matzo factory expedited the mass evictions. As unfortunate as it was, it had to be done.
I just don’t quite understand the love and affection towards the landlord. Here is the person most responsible for all this misery, and the solution is to hug him, and help him rectify the situation?
Tenants of 475 were ousted due to fire hazards, not to illegal living. That said, I agree with 9.02 that the landlord was the one who allowed unsafe conditions (including a broken standpipe!) in the first place. Why all the good feeling?
Are we to be sympathetic to these people who knew full well the situation, but insisted on taking their chances?
Tenants feeling sympathy for a “devastated” landlord? The person who is largely responsible for this whole mess? Tenants pitching in to help “rectify” the situation? This is like one big whip skippy lovefest.
Instead of wasting your time, why not start coordinating legal action against this helpless landlord and his corporation? Do something positive for a change.
Hear ye, hear ye! I am a proud yuppie gentrifier who couldn’t give two shits about poor artists being forced out of the hood due to high rents or a crackdown by the FDNY. As long as I’m happy in the place I call my home and can get a good cup of coffee and an egg & cheese on my drive to work where I make lots of money I am a happy man. No one is entitled to own an entire neighborhood and those who get pushed out or priced out, well, tough titty for you. You’re all a bunch of whiny babies and could use a good ole spankin’ like the bitches you are.
One major issue brought up by the Times article was the loss of business which accompanied the vacate order, aside from the loss of homes. Commercial use is allowed by the terms of the zoning, the (lack of) C of O and (presumably) under the leases signed by the tenants. Why not allow limited *commercial* access while the building is being brought to residential code, especially if fire guards are in the building anyway while contractors work on the sprinkler system?
Hey 2:51: Chandler was an artist who paid market rate rent and did not benefit from illegally occupying a one-time warehouse building that the residents KNEW did not have a residential C of O. I love art and artists, too but they have to pay their own way just like everyone else. No exceptions.
2:51
sorry, you cannot equate your breaking this law with littering – but, nice try.
the tenants of 475 knowingly entered into a relationship with a crook – thereby funding him for his next criminal escapade.
you are not a good person. good people tell that landlord off – insist that you wont do business with him until he obeys code and fixes the building. PLEASE do not lecture law abiding citizens until you get your shit together first!
get real. there are plenty of people who do do the right thing – these people are to be admired – not the horrible people of 475 Kent who want to get away with their illegal activities.
the people who had children in that building should have their children taken away from them.
please grow up and learn to live within the frame work of the law and within whatever budget you have.
And for those of you who forget how important artists are to the life and economy of this city- just remember who brought back SoHo (and got forced out). Artists. In Dumbo, in Williamsburg- every place artists went to find big loft spaces to live and work in, eventually were “discovered” by gentrifyiers and the real estate market. After years of investing their lives and money into salvaging unwanted, uncared for buildings and neighborhoods, artists brought a cachet to them that made other people with money and no imagination take notice. I watched it happen in Soho- watched anvibrant exciting neighborhood filled with fascinating shops and incredible people turn into a funky mall. Those of you who need your upscale clothing chains everywhere – you’ll just never know what you lost.
It’s wonderful to see how many of Brownstoner’s readers have such simple and childlike notions of the law, and know all they need or want to know from hearing at second or third hand a place is “illegal” or someone broke “the law.” Certainly this is a whole lot easier and cheaper than getting an actual professional legal opinion, or, god forbid, working to change laws that don’t seem to be doing an especially good job of advancing worthy goals like allowing those who’d like to, to live AND work in the same place (perhaps because of the nature of their work).
Raymond Chandler stated the issues nicely in the Long Goodbye:
[Lawyers]write the law for other lawyers to dissect in front of other lawyers called judges so that other judges can say the first judges were wrong and the Supreme Court can say the second lot were wrong. Sure there’s such a thing as law. We’re up to our neck in it. About all it does is make business for lawyers.
As for 9:42, yes 9:42, some of us at 475 have been at those very things for close to eleven years (and even spent some real money). Perhaps “Bohemian” need not be so purely pejorative or convey all the negative connotations you seem eager to imply.
Perhaps it’s time to jail those who litter. Or confiscate and exterminate the dogs of those who allow them to fowl the streets. Or maybe, just maybe a few other people– even those without MFAs– will wake up and see that fighting things you believe are wrong– in both principle and as executed– is worthwhile. But perhaps it’s too much to hope that if we get things right at 475 it might inspire others to pitch in and help make NYC occupancy law a bit more sensible and human.