By JOSEPH DE LA CRUZ
New York City Public Advocate Letitia James led a rally at Foley Square on Thursday to shame 100 property-owners who made her annual list of the Big Apple’s 100 worst landlords.
“Apartments free of mold, vermin, rodents and harassment aren’t luxuries,” James said on Twitter. “These are basic rights that no tenant should be denied.”
The list has proven successful in the past. “Some of the landlords on the list have made their way off of it,” James told Brooklyn News Service.
This year Harry D. Silverstein was number one on the Worst Landlords list but it wasn’t his first time on it.
Last year Silverstein was listed number two on the list. He owns eight buildings in New York City; one in the Bronx, two in Queens and five in Brooklyn.
In total, his buildings have exactly 575 units that have collected 2,082 violations. Those violations include 2,032 from the department of Housing Preservation and Development violations and 50 from the Department of Buildings.
Brooklyn leads the five boroughs with the highest amount of building violations The highest number of buildings on the list are in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
“The Landlord Watch list is a critically-important resource for tenants, advocates and elected officials,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said in press release.
James’ office uses data from the Housing Preservation and Development and the New York City Department of Buildings to create the list over six months, including visits to the buildings.
After the rally James led a tour with reporters to what she described as the worst building in the Bronx.
Attempts to reach Silverstein were unsuccessful.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.