Manhattan House Condo War - Martin Burwick Story

Excepted from BIG DEAL; A Classic Candela With a Storied Past, But Few Takers by Josh Barbanel, New York Times
November 19, 2006

MARTIN BURWICK, a 97-year-old retired owner of a wholesale plumbing supply business, died of pneumonia on Monday and was buried in Mount Carmel Cemetery in Queens. But because Mr. Burwick lived his last years at Manhattan House, a luxury apartment complex being converted to condominiums on East 66th Street, his death has become part of a bitter fight between tenants and the condo developers.

Mr. Burwick and his 90-year-old sister, Elizabeth Amsterdam, had lived in separate market-rate apartments at the Manhattan House, the site of the most expensive condo conversion -- at $1.1 billion -- on file at the state attorney general's office. They were fighting eviction by sponsors who hoped to remodel and sell their units.

But at the end of October -- after weeks of construction that tenants say spewed fumes, dust, debris and mice and rats throughout the building -- Mr. Burwick's family abandoned their legal claims to the two apartments. Mr. Burwick and his sister, who suffers from emphysema, moved out of the building and into a rental apartment on York Avenue. Before the move Mr. Burwick complained of shortness of breath. Five days after he moved out, his condition worsened and he was hospitalized two days later.

When someone of Mr. Burwick's advanced age dies of pneumonia, it is usually difficult to definitively link it to a single cause, doctors say. Yet Mr. Burwick's niece, Gail Amsterdam, a corporate recruiter who still lives in the building (in a rent-regulated apartment and, as such, is protected from eviction) said she believes the difficult conditions in the building, and the stress of the eviction contributed to his death.

Although he had difficulty hearing, and needed help walking, she said, ''he was never sick a day in his life.''

Ms. Amsterdam said that Mr. Burwick's final months in the Manhattan House were made particularly harsh because she had made a personal appeal on his behalf to N. Richard Kalikow, one of the partners developing the project. She had asked Mr. Kalikow to let him stay in his apartment because of his advanced age but was turned down. Mr. Kalikow's partner in the development is Jeremiah O'Connor Jr.

Mr. Kalikow referred questions about Mr. Burwick to Steve Solomon, an executive vice president at Howard Rubenstein Associates, a public relations company. ''We have no idea what caused Mr. Burwick's death,'' Mr. Solomon said. ''We do know that we have taken every precaution possible to create the safest and healthiest environment at Manhattan House during this reconstruction period.'' Mr. Solomon added, ''The plan remains on schedule.''

Tenants at many buildings undergoing conversion to condos have complained that city and state officials do not pay enough attention to the needs of people living in buildings that have been turned into construction projects. At Manhattan House, tenants complained about the handling of asbestos in the building and are pressing to have their own engineer examine the work there.

Dr. Harrison Bloom, a senior associate at the International Longevity Center and a specialist in geriatric medicine, said that construction dust and debris could spread disease and requires careful planning, especially around older people. But he noted that the stress of an eviction or another crisis could also be a contributing factor to pneumonia. ''There is good evidence that, at any age, stress can lower immunity and therefore predispose someone to infection,'' he said.