LES Tenement Museum Scandal - Rally Sunday 4/28 Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit JUST RECEIVED FROM TENANTS ONLINE - SORRY IT'S SO LATE - NY Transfer source - tenant@tenant.net Sun Apr 28 11:55:29 2002 NYtenants Online/TenantNet 4/28/02 ----------------------------------------------------------------- IN THIS ISSUE ... 1. Today's rally opposes dislocation of LES tenants and abuses of Eminent Domain 2. Supporters of 99 Orchard Street 3. MORE IS AT STAKE than just the tenants of 99 Orchard Street. Eminent Domain abuse has the potential to disrupt tenants and neighborhoods on a scale not seen since Robert Moses evicted 500,000 tenants. (Tenant/Inquilino) 4. Immigrants Museum vs. Locals: Lower East Side divided (Daily News) 5. Museum Plan Hits Too Close to Home (LA Times) NOTE: we would have gotten this notice out sooner, but we had computer trouble ----------------------------------------------------------------- RALLY TODAY AT NOON On April 28, Sunday, at 12 noon, there will be a demonstration by the supporters of 99 Orchard Street in front of 99 Orchard Street. The owners, Lou Holtzman and Peter Liang thank the 1,500 concerned residents who have signed petitions supporting their cause and asking the EMPIRE STATE DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION to not go through with its plans to condemn 99 Orchard Street. Please ask your friends to come support Lou, Peter, the residents of 99 Orchard Street and the employees of Congee Village Restaurant in their effort to save their homes and business. WHEN: Sunday, April 28 at 12 Noon WHERE: at 99 Orchard Street, Manhattan Rally endorsed/sponsored by: 99 Orchard Street Coalition, New York Chinese Businessmen's Association, Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, Lower East Side Business Improvement District, USA Chinese Women's Association, Flushing Chinese Business Association, Chinese Charnber of Commerce, Metropolitan Council on Housing, TenantNet ----------------------------------------------------------------- THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE AND ORGANIZATIONS ARE OPPOSING THIS ABUSE OF EMINENT DOMAIN: Marvin Wasserman (Disability Rights Activist & former Pres. 504 Democratic Club) Harry Wider, Disability Rights Activist Community Board 3 New York Chinese Businessmen's Association Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association Honorable Sheldon Silver, Speaker, New York State Assembly Honorable Thomas Duane, New York State Senator Honorable Alan Gerson, New York City Councilman Andrew Flamm, Lower East Side Business Improvement District Li Ping Yu, General Manager, Oceanic International Edward Klein, Owner, Kleins of Monticello Carol M. Matorin, Attorney, Law Officers of Hall, Dickler, et al Sol Einhorn, Owner, Bridge Merchandise Victor Luke, Owner, Loho Studios DJ Honda, Owner, DJ Honda Fashions Alex Zhang, General Manager, 28 Plumbing Supply Kei-Ping Chen, General Manager, Wholesome Realty Pou Chu Wong, Owner, 118 Lucky Restaurant Chen Bin, General Manager, Forsythe Construction Peter Wong, President, Creative Signs & Awnings Cheing May Loi, Director, J& S Construction Sam Lau, Owner, Indoor-Outdoor Flooring Chiu Lim, President, Int. Photo & Frame Bea Salwyn, Owner, Salwyn Inc. Edward Luke, Owner, Loho Studios R. Setenbrino, Owner, Moda Moda Fashions Avi Nar, Owner, Cougar Fashions Ltd. Mark Miller, Owner, Miller Gallery USA Chinese Women Association HoySun Ning Yung Benevolent Association Lin Sing Association Chinese Chamber of Commerce Lee's Association of America Chew Lun Association Moy Shee Family Association Flushing Chinese Business Association ----------------------------------------------------------------- EMINENT DOMAIN ABUSE HAS THE POTENTIAL TO DISRUPT TENANTS AND NEIGHBORHOODS on a scale not seen since Robert Moses evicted 500,000 tenants. Tenant/Inquilino If you're a New York City tenant, chances are you've had problems with your landlord and, from time to time you might wish for him or her to disappear. Strangely though, there are times you might wish to support your landlord's right to own and operate his property. You know about the anti-tenant DHCR and Housing Court, the fix-is-in-the-bag RGB and periodic renewals of the rent laws, but other forces are likely to be just as dangerous to your housing and quality of life. Tenants need to start understanding how development, gentrification, real estate tax abatements, city bond financing, transportation infrastructure, among other issues, can destabilize residential neighborhoods, forcing out small businesses and long-time residents. It may not matter if rent regulation is still on the books because such forces result in both primary and seconday displacement, and are often disguised by schemes to "revitalize" or "restore" neighborhood through tourism, arts, sports and economic development. One such tool is Eminent Domain. In the last few years, the favorite tool of Robert Moses (who displaced 500,000 tenants) has been making a comeback and is being abused as never before. Most people think Eminent Domain is when when private property is seized by government agencies to be used for public uses such as roads, schools and airports, but "public use" is being twisted into a strained version of "public interest" opening up the floodgates to almost anything and being handed over to other private owners. It's Robin Hood in reverse! In Harlem, William Minnich is fighting the Empire State Development Corporation's attempt to take his family furniture factory away so proposed Home Depot can have a parking lot. Last year developer Douglas Durst asked Governor Pataki to condemn property adjoining his 6th Avenue and 42nd Street parcel (the owner refused to sell until after September 11th), simply so he could build a larger skyscraper. The Village of Port Chester is seeking Bill Brody's lumber yard in order to hand it over to a well-connected Stop 'n Shop developer. In New Rochelle, 34 homes, 29 businesses and two churches could be displaced to make room for an Ikea superstore. And in Manhattan, the New York Times seeks to displace local businesses so it can build its new skyscraper to promote its yuppified vision of Manhattan. Perhaps the most bizarre instance of Eminent Domain is where the Lower East Side Tenement Museum seeks to acquire a building owned by long-time resident Lou Holtzman to expand the Museum. The problem is that Holtzman has 15 tenants who would be displaced by the move. And while the Museum has done good work in preserving the immigrant experience, it's move (like many arts groups that naively bite at developer's carrots), would hurt the very neighborhood whose values it seeks to extol. Even more egregious is a plan proposed by Senator Charles Schumer and backed by City Hall to condemn large swaths of private property on Manhattan's West Side (24th to 42nd Streets, 9th Avenue to the Hudson), assemble the booty and hand it over to private developers (read "campaign contributors") for a new Central Business District or "CBD" -- the result would be skyscrapers going to the river and acres of office space for which there is no need. In the process it would destroy a low-rise mixed-use neighborhood providing valuable industrial infrastructure to Manhattan. Rudy's West Side Stadium is only a small part of this scheme, but the Olympics and a specious claim of the need to expand the Jacob Javits Convention Center are being used as "warm puppies" to attract support. Such massive development plans would destroy what's left of Chelsea and Clinton, sharply increase traffic, increase commercial rents (forcing neighborhood stores out to be replaced by noisy nightclubs and the Gap), and step up residential landlord pressures to harass or buy-out tenants. Taking property -- usually at a lower-than-market price and often without adequate notice -- leads to uncertainty of land use, community destabilization and leaves tenants at risk. It may benefit developers and some wealthy suburbanites now seeing Manhattan as an urban Disneyland, but for those who put down roots, pay taxes and keep this town viable, it's likely they will be forced out. It does not help, of course, that the NYC Department of City Planning, Manhattan Borough President Virginia Fields and many NYC Community Boards have forgone their planning function and operate as simple rubber-stamps for developer displacement schemes. Eminent Domain is a tool that in some limited cases is useful to the larger city's interests. But in today's current climate, city and state governments are distorting it into a weapon and progressively taking larger potshots at New York City's neighborhoods. Development can be a very good thing when the agenda is about sustainable communities, not the developer's pocketbook. ----------------------------------------------------------------- IMMIGRANTS MUSEUM VS. LOCALS Lower East Side Divided as Preservationists Battle Old-Timers By BRIAN KATES Daily News, April 28, 2002 Lou Holtzman sat with his wife Mimi on the stoop of his renovated tenement building at 99 Orchard St. the other day. The steps, the door, even the windows of the building were plastered with signs: "The Museum Will Not Take My Home" and "Eminent Domain Abuse." A tourist, climbing the steep stairs of the lower East Side Tenement Museum next door at 97 Orchard St. stopped to absorb the message. The museum guide, an earnest young out-of-work actor, shook his head. "It's a pretty nasty dispute," he said. More like a lower East Side blood feud. The museum -- devoted to celebrating 19th and early 20th century immigration and "the dreams that motivate today's immigrants" -- is determined to expand into Holtzman's building, which shares a common wall. Holtzman is equally determined not to let it happen. After he rejected a $1.35 million offer for his property, museum founder and CEO Ruth Abram sought to have the state's Empire State Development Corp. condemn it "for the public good" under the laws of eminent domain." The agency, which held hearings in January, is expected to render a decision early next month. The high-stakes battle is riddled with irony. It pits the museum against Holtzman -- whose immigrant East-ern European Jewish ancestors moved into 99 Orchard St. in 1910 -- and his partner, Peter Liang, the Hong Kong-born owner of the Congee Village Chinese restaurant at 98 Allen St. The restaurant, directly behind Holtzman's building, recently expanded into its basement at a reported cost of $2 million. The move provided jobs for about a dozen immigrant workers. The dispute has galvanized the neighborhood's political power base and divided Orchard St. shopkeepers and tenants into pro-museum and pro-Holtzman factions. As one resident put it, "It's the immigrant museum vs. the immigrants, the newcomers vs. the old-timers." Each side has a lot at stake. The 14-year-old museum -- a federal landmark billed as the oldest structurally unaltered tenement in the city -- has re-created the apartments of actual tenants who lived at 97 Orchard between 1863 and 1935. It gets 90,000 visitors a year, including many school children, and wants to grow to serve 200,000 -- the projected spillover from Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. Acquiring 99 Orchard would allow the museum to install a wheelchair-access elevator, expand exhibit space and put its reception center and lucrative gift shop, which is now down the block, under one roof. Access for the handicapped is essential to cementing the museum's relationship with the National Park Service and the key to getting vastly increased government funding, which last year totaled nearly $404,000. As museum attendance grows, so does its revenues -- and Abram's salary, which jumped to $103,000 last year from $70,000 in 1998, according to museum tax filings. For his part, Holtzman says, "I want to be the first in four generations of my family to make money out of this building." For 32 years he had a recording studio in the building. He recently closed that and renovated the apartments for his family and 15 tenants. He says he invested about $1 million and gets a hefty $1,700 a month for each 325-square-foot apartment. Local entrepreneur Liang says Congee Village's business has skyrocketed since he expanded it into Holtzman's cellar. Condemnation would put about 20 immigrant workers out of a job at a time when the Asian American Foundation estimates about 1,000 Chinese New Yorkers were left unemployed by the World Trade Center attack. Congee Village manager Eric Li lost his former job at the Windows on the World restaurant in the Trade Center after Sept. 11, and it took him five months to find this one. "Everybody is really scared," said Li, who came to the U.S. 20 years ago and is now a citizen. "Restaurant jobs are really hard to find now, especially downtown and especially for immigrants." Both sides are taking the dispute personally. Holtzman refers to Abram as a "nouveau tenement phony" who is trying to "rob me of my family's immigrant dream and put at least a dozen hardworking Chinese immigrants out of work." He has his own Web site replete with strident anti-Abram rhetoric and a photo album of his Orchard St. ancestors. Abram disputes Holtzman's four-generation attachment to the building and brandishes city records revealing that 99 Orchard St. was at times vacant and reported abandoned. Abram says, "I can understand why Lou is upset." But, she says, "The tenants will be handsomely compensated" if they are kicked out. By law, compensation is set by a judge after an independent audit. As a commercial tenant, however, Congee Village is not legally entitled to compensation. In such a legal action, each side trundles out a raft of charges and counter-charges. They present conflicting inspection reports and bales of inconclusive Buildings Department paperwork. Abram says Holtzman's renovations and the expansion of the Congee Village were "done illegally" and caused "cracks and irreparable damage" to the museum. But no legal action has been taken. Holtzman, whose building is now owned by 98 Allen St. Realty in a partnership with Liang, was issued a certificate of occupancy and the Congee Village expansion went forward. The museum proffers letters from 95 "supporters of acquisition of 99 Orchard St." Many are from out-of-state preservationists and museum officials from as far away as England. Some of those who sent letters told the Daily News they did not know the museum's expansion would involve taking over someone else's property. Many of the museum's local supporters cited its contribution to cultural development of the area. Others want to stop the tide of gentrification on the lower East Side. The Rev. Edgar Hopper of historic St. Augustine's Episcopal Church on Madison St. wrote: "The owners of 99 Orchard St. are bringing in wealthy people from outside the neighborhood to pay astronomical rents. They further marginalize this neighborhood's immigrant residents, creating another facility that most of us can't own or operate." But neighborhood business associations and Community Board 3 oppose using the condemnation to ex-pand the museum, saying it is a matter that should be resolved in court. Local politicians concur, including Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and state Sens. Marty O'Connor and Tom Duane. Duane said, "I strongly insist that we do not remove from the market needed housing units, even for the most worthy of causes." Silver wrote to the Empire State Development Corp.: "As important as the museum's contribution is to our neighborhood, so too is it imperative that we protect the rights of tenants and landowners when they are threatened." A majority ruling of the nine-member development board will decide the issue, but agency attorney Joe Petrillo makes it appear the decision already has been made. "We see the [museum's] expansion as a worthwhile public objective," he said. "Economics is not the driving force. This is a civic project." Holtzman says, "My building, which has been in my family for generations, is home to real people leading real lives in a real lower East Side. My friend Peter Liang's restaurant is not nostalgia. It is not historic. This is real life." ----------------------------------------------------------------- MUSEUM PLAN HITS TOO CLOSE TO HOME Space-hungry N.Y. tenement exhibit seeks to evict tenement neighbors. "The irony just smacks you in the face," opponent says. By JOSH GETLIN Los Angeles Times http://www.latimes.com/la-041802museum.story NEW YORK -- They were once joined at the hip in the heart of New York's Lower East Side, two identical brick tenements offering cheap, dimly lit apartments to waves of immigrants from all over the world. But they came to play different roles in the community: One was turned into a museum celebrating the area's immigrant history. The other is home to 15 families, as well as a popular Chinese restaurant on the ground floor. And now, in a move that has some shaking their heads, the museum is attempting to evict the people who live and work next door--many of them immigrants--so it can expand and accommodate more tourists. "The irony just smacks you in the face," said Martha Danziger, a community leader who opposes the Lower East Side Tenement Museum's bid to take over the adjacent building. "They want to create a virtual tenement museum in a neighborhood that already has tenements." Built in 1863, the twin walk-ups at 97 and 99 Orchard St. were fixtures in a neighborhood that welcomed Irish, German, Jewish, Italian, Puerto Rican and Chinese families. Yet now, as booming property values transform the area, the feud between the buildings' owners highlights a battle over the community's future--and its place in America's immigrant memory. This is a street where living history collides with living people. Opened in 1988, the Tenement Museum is a national landmark that has restored turn-of-the-century immigrant apartments to their original conditions and draws 90,000 visitors each year. Ruth Abram, the founder, says she wants to welcome 200,000 tourists and can only do this by acquiring the building next door. She has asked state officials to seize the property through eminent domain if a deal cannot be worked out. But Lou Holzman, whose family members have been living at 99 Orchard St. since 1910, has no intention of selling the building. Neither does his business partner, Peter Liang, who runs the Congee Village restaurant and employs more than 50 Chinese and Latino immigrant workers. Both say the use of eminent domain to help a small museum would be absurd. "It's easy to sympathize with the two sides, so the question is, which view of the Lower East Side do you embrace?" said sociologist Christopher Mele, author of "Selling the Lower East Side." "Is this area a gold mine of immigrant history that should be preserved? Or is it a living, breathing place filled with new and older immigrants who should be protected?" Eminent Domain Decision Nears Tensions are rising on both sides as the Empire State Development Corp., New York state's economic development agency, nears a decision--expected this week--on whether to proceed with the eminent domain. And the dispute is playing out against a steady drumbeat of gentrification that is rapidly changing the community from a crime-infested slum into an edgy but vibrant melting pot of bars, boutiques and restaurants. The Lower East Side is a study in contrast. While it continues to pack waves of new immigrants, mainly Chinese, into tenements, the once-rundown buildings of the nearby Bowery are being turned into million-dollar co-ops. The average rent at 99 Orchard St. is $1,600 for a 350-square-foot apartment--a price that is high but hardly atypical, given Manhattan's tight rental housing market. Bordered on the north by 14th Street, on the south by Fulton and Franklin streets and running west from Broadway to the East River, the neighborhood is growing economically, despite the effects of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. While Latino groups push for more affordable housing and criticize the trend toward higher-priced apartments, young Orthodox Jewish couples have begun moving back into the aging, high-rise units that were once occupied by their grandparents. On a recent afternoon, the sidewalk shops and restaurants near Orchard Street were filled with the aromas of garlic kosher pickles, fresh-baked empanadas and pungent Chinese congee. "This is one of America's most symbolic neighborhoods," said historian Suzanne Wasserman, associate director of the Gotham Center at City University of New York. "It's constantly reinventing itself, and many groups see it as sacred because so many people can trace their roots back to this community. Everybody wants a piece of the Lower East Side." The community is no stranger to controversy. As immigrants poured in during the late 19th century, it became America's prototype of a big-city slum. Journalist Jacob Riis wrote his powerful newspaper expose "How the Other Half Lives" after visiting the squalid area in 1890. Ever since then, activists have been drawn to a neighborhood that was the first glimpse of America for millions of people who got off the boat at Ellis Island. Abram said her overriding goal is to promote tolerance for the different kinds of people who have lived on Orchard Street--and to use history as a tool to better understand the present. Building Offers Guided Tours The narrow, six-story building offers guided tours of meticulously restored apartments that were occupied by poor immigrant families dating from 1897. The museum also sponsors film festivals, walking tours and community forums on social issues, including the problems of Garment District workers on the Lower East Side and America's historical perceptions of poverty. "We want people to understand how hard it must have been to come to America and live in such small apartments," Abram said. "But I worry that a lot of the people who come away moved by the experience of Jewish and Italian families leave the museum and then look down on the Chinese and Hispanic people who live in the same neighborhood today." It is this very attitude, however, that infuriates her opponents. "Here's a museum that wants to promote the history of immigration and educate people," Holzman said. "But it proposes to do this evicting tenants and throwing 50 immigrants out of work. It makes no sense." Many New Yorkers fled the Lower East Side in the 1960s and '70s, when the area was filthy and dangerous. Yet Holzman is proud that he stayed because his family has roots here. Holzman once ran a jazz and rock recording studio in the building, but he recently formed a partnership with Liang to renovate the property. The six-story tenement's living quarters, which had been closed for years, reopened last fall. As the owners spruced up 99 Orchard St., Abram was feeling growing pains next door. She said she badly needed additional space--in part to build an elevator so disabled visitors could enjoy the museum--and had been attempting for some time to buy Holzman's building. But he had no interest in selling. A nasty feud erupted two years ago, when Abram charged that the renovation next door had structurally damaged the foundation of the Tenement Museum. She sought help from political allies wherever she could find them. "The state responded, and we were just so relieved," Abram said, noting that the Empire State Development Corp. agreed to consider taking Holzman's building through eminent domain. Although it is highly unusual for a private entity to request such action, it is not unheard of. Once initiated, eminent domain proceedings are rarely overturned, and Holzman's main challenge would be over the price to be paid for his property. Although the museum once offered to buy his building for $1.3 million, he said the full value of a newly renovated 99 Orchard St. is between $7 million and $10 million. 'A Matter of Public Need' Whatever the final price, Abram said, the condemnation is "a matter of public need," no different than previous seizures of land for public purposes such as freeways and large commercial projects. Unfortunately, she added, state law had prevented her from speaking publicly about the eminent domain proposal until it was announced in December. And by then new tenants had moved into Holzman's building. If the building is condemned, Abram said, tenants will be helped to find new homes; they will also be compensated for moving expenses. "It was so unfair for this to happen to the people who just got here," said Suzy Lease, 25, a waitress who moved in last fall. Many observers wish that the two sides could have worked out some kind of accommodation. While Abram insists she must have 99 Orchard St., others ask why the museum couldn't have looked for tenement property elsewhere. "In almost any other neighborhood, this would be a simple real estate dispute," said Hasia Diner, a New York University history professor and author of "Lower East Side Memories." "But there is so much communal memory in this area. It's become a collision over sacred space." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The Tenant Network(tm) for Residential Tenants TenantNet(tm): http://tenant.net email: tenant@tenant.net Information from TenantNet is from experienced non-attorney tenant activists and is not considered legal advice. 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