Vote on Landmark Status Set for Manhattan House
BY GARY SHAPIRO - New York Sun
January 29, 2007
A sprawling white-brick Upper East Side apartment building, which was once inhabited by Grace Kelly and Benny Goodman and inspired other uptown modernist buildings, may become a landmark. The Landmarks Preservation Commission is set to vote tomorrow on whether to pursue landmark designation for Manhattan House, at 200 East 66 Street, whose ample light and ventilation influenced a generation of postwar apartment buildings.
Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the gleaming building, which has approximately 583 apartments, received an award from the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects in 1952, a year after its completion. Its glass-walled lobbies are set below a spare frame with Bauhaus-style balconies. A sloping driveway traverses the front of the H- shaped apartment building, which stretches between Second and Third avenues and is bounded by 65th and 66th streets.
The president of Docomomo US, an advocacy group for documenting and conserving buildings of the modern movement nationally, Theodore Prudon, said Manhattan House began to set the standard for apartment house designs following World War II. The co-chair of the Modern Architecture Working Group, an ad hoc committee of preservationists, John Jurayj, said this building has always been known, virtually from the time it was built, as architecturally important.
Another Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Building under consideration for landmark status is the Guardian Life Insurance Company Annex at 105 East 17 St (1959-63).
"One of our top priorities is to preserve the city's modern architecture, which is why we are pursuing Manhattan House and Guardian Life with a great deal of determination," said Commission Chairman Robert B. Tierney. "Both of these buildings are important examples of architecture that is finally getting its due." The owners of Manhattan House, N. Richard Kalikow and Jeremiah O'Connor Jr., were unable to be reached by press time. The building has been undergoing conversion to condominiums.
The decision to hold a hearing on Manhattan House has the support of two local council members in the area. Council Member Daniel Garodnick said, "As the City's first white-brick apartment building and one of the finest examples of the International Modern Style, Manhattan House is a strong candidate for landmark designation." Council Member Jessica Lappin agreed the building was worthy of consideration.
The Landmarks Commission has designated other modernist buildings such as the Summit Hotel at 569 Lexington Ave. If the two Skidmore, Owings & Merrill buildings become landmarked, they will join other noteworthy buildings from that firm, such as the Pepsi-Cola Building at 500 Park Ave., the Manufacturer's Trust Company Building at 510 Fifth Ave., and Lever House at 390 Park Ave.
The director of Friends of the Upper East Side Historic Districts, Seri Worden, acknowledged that the landmark process can be a tough sell for some who, for example, might have grown up with the building and do not see why modern buildings were historically important. But she said this building was both important and especially well designed. Its large shiny white presence, she said, was quite a contrast to the dark brick tenements once seen along the elevated train line.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Attempts to Subvert Anti-Warehousing Law
The sponsors' actions were intended to circumvent New York State's "excess vacancy" or "anti-warehousing" law, according to this January 25, 2007 letter from David Rozenholc to the AG's office.
Read the letter here.
Read the letter here.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
The Battle at Manhattan House
New York Magazine, December 4, 2006
By S. Jhoanna Robledo
Condo conversions are notoriously difficult, but the drama unfurling at Manhattan House, a 583-unit East 66th Street building that’s the epitome of the giant postwar white-brick, is reaching legendary proportions. Lawyers and legislators are hollering, and “animosity would not begin to describe what’s going on,” says Gail Amsterdam, who has lived in the building for sixteen years.
Tenants claim owners N. Richard Kalikow and Jeremiah O’Connor, who bought it last year for $620 million in the second-most-expensive sale of a rental building ever (topped only by the Stuyvesant Town deal), are muscling elderly rent-stabilized and market-rate tenants out the door. Those who’ve stayed gripe about renovations. One man well over 80 says his rent checks have gone uncashed; Amsterdam even blames the recent death of her uncle, Martin Burwick, on the resultant stress. (Publicist Steve Solomon, speaking for Kalikow and O’Connor, says “there’s absolutely no truth” to the harassment claims.)
It’s the stuff headlines are made of, and indeed the mess has made the papers repeatedly. But is it worth it for the developers? Their prices, around $1,500 per square foot, are pretty high, and questions linger over whether the cooling condo market will support them. A 1,482-square-foot two-bedroom on the seventh floor, for instance, is priced at $2.2 million; a 2,367-square-foot on a higher floor, $3.8 million. (Current tenants will get a slight discount.) In comparison, a 1,475-square-foot unit at the Philip Johnson–designed Metropolitan is listed in the offering plan at $1.68 million; a 2,200-square-foot three-bedroom on East End Avenue is $3.25 million. Even for a place that once housed Grace Kelly, those are ambitious numbers. “You’re going to be living with a lot of renters … My clientele would not be interested in that,” scoffs one uptown broker.
Furthermore, even with a planned makeover—roof deck, library, billiard room, fitness center—Manhattan House’s owners can’t do much about its modest ceiling heights and ungainly exterior. Appraiser Jonathan Miller, while noting the building’s appealingly large units, says the conversion “may fly, but there’s more competition out there.” Says Amsterdam, “If I was going to spend $2 million on a two-bedroom, I’d go to Park Avenue … You can teach an old dog new tricks, but an old dog’s an old dog.”
Solomon maintains “a lot of thought went into the pricing,” adding that he expects many residents to buy in. Some of those tenants wonder if they’re wanted, though. “We told them many times we were interested, and they [sent] us an eviction notice,” says software executive Ben Weintraub, who’s lived there for eleven years. Ditto Douglas Altchek, a doctor and 25-year Manhattan House resident who suspects that the developers would prefer the higher prices outside sales would bring. “I’m ready, willing, and able,” he says, sighing. “Why on earth they haven’t negotiated with me, I don’t know.”
By S. Jhoanna Robledo
Condo conversions are notoriously difficult, but the drama unfurling at Manhattan House, a 583-unit East 66th Street building that’s the epitome of the giant postwar white-brick, is reaching legendary proportions. Lawyers and legislators are hollering, and “animosity would not begin to describe what’s going on,” says Gail Amsterdam, who has lived in the building for sixteen years.
Tenants claim owners N. Richard Kalikow and Jeremiah O’Connor, who bought it last year for $620 million in the second-most-expensive sale of a rental building ever (topped only by the Stuyvesant Town deal), are muscling elderly rent-stabilized and market-rate tenants out the door. Those who’ve stayed gripe about renovations. One man well over 80 says his rent checks have gone uncashed; Amsterdam even blames the recent death of her uncle, Martin Burwick, on the resultant stress. (Publicist Steve Solomon, speaking for Kalikow and O’Connor, says “there’s absolutely no truth” to the harassment claims.)
It’s the stuff headlines are made of, and indeed the mess has made the papers repeatedly. But is it worth it for the developers? Their prices, around $1,500 per square foot, are pretty high, and questions linger over whether the cooling condo market will support them. A 1,482-square-foot two-bedroom on the seventh floor, for instance, is priced at $2.2 million; a 2,367-square-foot on a higher floor, $3.8 million. (Current tenants will get a slight discount.) In comparison, a 1,475-square-foot unit at the Philip Johnson–designed Metropolitan is listed in the offering plan at $1.68 million; a 2,200-square-foot three-bedroom on East End Avenue is $3.25 million. Even for a place that once housed Grace Kelly, those are ambitious numbers. “You’re going to be living with a lot of renters … My clientele would not be interested in that,” scoffs one uptown broker.
Furthermore, even with a planned makeover—roof deck, library, billiard room, fitness center—Manhattan House’s owners can’t do much about its modest ceiling heights and ungainly exterior. Appraiser Jonathan Miller, while noting the building’s appealingly large units, says the conversion “may fly, but there’s more competition out there.” Says Amsterdam, “If I was going to spend $2 million on a two-bedroom, I’d go to Park Avenue … You can teach an old dog new tricks, but an old dog’s an old dog.”
Solomon maintains “a lot of thought went into the pricing,” adding that he expects many residents to buy in. Some of those tenants wonder if they’re wanted, though. “We told them many times we were interested, and they [sent] us an eviction notice,” says software executive Ben Weintraub, who’s lived there for eleven years. Ditto Douglas Altchek, a doctor and 25-year Manhattan House resident who suspects that the developers would prefer the higher prices outside sales would bring. “I’m ready, willing, and able,” he says, sighing. “Why on earth they haven’t negotiated with me, I don’t know.”
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.
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.
CONDO CRAZE
New York Post, Page Six(TM)
November 16, 2006 -- Tenants resisting the conversion of Manhattan House at 200 E. 66th St. (once home to Grace Kelly) into condos blame it for the death of a 97-year-old resident. Martin Burwick, whose unregulated lease would have been up in April 2007, died of pneumonia on Monday, causing some activists to blame the stress of eviction. "A man is dead, and it's from the conditions in the building," one tenant said. A spokeswoman for Manhattan House, owned by Richard Kalikow and Jeremiah O'Connor, denied the claim: "We are all very sorry to hear about the death of the 97-year old gentleman. We have taken every precaution to ensure the safest and healthiest environment for the tenants."
November 16, 2006 -- Tenants resisting the conversion of Manhattan House at 200 E. 66th St. (once home to Grace Kelly) into condos blame it for the death of a 97-year-old resident. Martin Burwick, whose unregulated lease would have been up in April 2007, died of pneumonia on Monday, causing some activists to blame the stress of eviction. "A man is dead, and it's from the conditions in the building," one tenant said. A spokeswoman for Manhattan House, owned by Richard Kalikow and Jeremiah O'Connor, denied the claim: "We are all very sorry to hear about the death of the 97-year old gentleman. We have taken every precaution to ensure the safest and healthiest environment for the tenants."
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Tenants seize on state law to soften condo conversion
Market-rate tenants turn to innovative tactics to fight landlord practices that may be coming all over town.
By Sara Stefanini, City Limits WEEKLY, October 30, 2006, Number: 559
When Douglas Altcheck first heard rumors last fall that Manhattan House, the 583-unit building where he’s rented an apartment for 25 years, would be converted to condominiums, he thought he would finally have an opportunity to become a homeowner.
But he soon heard more rumors that the owners, to maximize their profit on the building that covers an entire city block, would be offering an “insider’s rate” less attractive than the norm to tenants who insisted on staying, instead trying to empty the building through a variety of unpleasant tactics to make way for wealthier outside investors.
“I thought this was my chance to purchase my apartment,” said Altcheck, a dermatologist whose rent was stabilized until four years ago, when it hit the $2,000 mark that allows rent to be decontrolled for those who earn $175,000 or more annually. “There are no laws protecting market-rate tenants.”
Though that’s a bit of an overstatement, tenants of the landmark building one year later are seeing their fears about the condo conversion coming true in a situation that could foretell the future for many other tenants, as there are currently more than 700 buildings pending condo conversions in Manhattan. That’s according to the office of the state attorney general, which approves the proposals to convert. The new owners appear to be pushing tenants out by disturbing them with construction work, raising rent drastically and refusing to renew contracts.
As the first condo conversion on such a large and expensive scale, the contentious relationship between Manhattan House’s tenants and landlord could be the shape of things to come citywide. “With Manhattan House, what’s new is the size of the project, and other ones that are slated to enter,” said Jonathan Miller, CEO of Miller Samuel, a real estate appraisal and consulting firm.
Like the Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town complexes, which sold this month for $5.4 billion, Manhattan House is one of a number of affordable-housing apartment buildings built as part of a postwar urban renewal project designed for middle-class New Yorkers. The 22-story edifice is the Upper East Side’s first white brick structure, covering an entire block on 66th Street between Second and Third Avenues, and includes a parking lot, retail stores and the largest private garden in the city. Close to 250 apartments remain rent-stabilized. Market-rate apartments go for $4,000 to $8,000, said Rafael Urquia, chairman of the tenants’ association.
Eventually, buildings like Peter Cooper Village, Stuyvesant Town and Manhattan House will become condos, said Larry Longua, a professor at the New York University Real Estate Institute. “This will ultimately convert,” Longua said. “There’s no rent that they can achieve to make up what they’ll pay in interest. Deals like this are going to empty out the middle class from Manhattan.”
But the Manhattan House Tenant’s Association is fighting aspects of the conversion using tactics that can at least stall the process and give them bargaining power, he added.
Tenants are drawing attention to what they claim is abuse of a state law called the Martin Act as a way to force the new owners to lower the inflated rental and purchasing prices they’ve imposed, said Altcheck, a member of the tenants’ association.
According to the Martin Act, Altcheck and his neighbors, who also fretted about their fate, shouldn’t even have heard about future plans for Manhattan House until its new owners, N. Richard Kalikow and Jeremiah O’Connor, Jr., filed a proposal for tenants to review and for the New York Attorney General to approve. On Feb. 1, 2006, several months after the rumors started spreading, Kalikow and O’Connor submitted a proposal of their plans for the property they had purchased in October 2005 for about $625 million, which real estate experts said set a national record for the sales price of a single residential building.
In response to the apparent violation, and what the tenants call “scare tactics” by the landlord to force them out before apartments go on the market, the tenants’ association this past summer filed a complaint with the attorney general. It claims that to bankroll their purchase, Kalikow, O’Connor and Credit Suisse Bank, which backed them, publicly sold bonds. In doing so, they released details about the conversion before it was reviewed.
David Rozenholc, an attorney for the tenants’ association, said he is focusing on how the sale was funded. “The way this deal was financed is a new sort of creation, it’s one of the newer inventions in financing and buying.”
New York Life Insurance Company sold the building at the peak of the housing boom for more than $1 million per apartment. Kalikow and O’Connor bought the property as a joint venture between their two firms, Manchester Real Estate and Construction, LLC, and O’Connor North American Properties Partnership, respectively.
A spokeswoman for the owners would only confirm that the building is being transformed to condominiums.
Keeping conversion plans under wraps, as the Martin Act requires, protects tenants from hearing false rumors or moving out prematurely, said Urquia, an international corporate lawyer.
Credit Suisse posted details about the building’s future on bond-rating Web sites such as Fitch Ratings, the tenants’ association says. It also claims that O’Connor’s son and business partner, William, discussed the plan at a Columbia Business School alumni seminar on Dec. 8, which some Manhattan House tenants attended.
Allan Starr, an attorney for the owners, did not return phone calls. In a letter he sent the attorney general’s office this August which the tenants’ association provided, Starr said his clients have not and will not “engage in any pre-sales or other activity that violates the Martin Act.” He also said that William O’Connor merely used Manhattan House as an example while lecturing on other real estate issues, and didn’t realize there were residents in the audience.
But tenants think releasing the information was part of a larger effort to intimidate renters into leaving before the construction to renovate, remove asbestos and install central air conditioning is complete. They have also accused the owners of beginning the asbestos work before receiving the go-ahead from the attorney general, significantly hiking rent prices and using other methods to push out rent-stabilized tenants.
A spokesman for Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said he could not comment on an ongoing case.
As they wait to see whether their legal challenge will bear fruit – optimally forcing the owners to lower the rent hikes and improve the insider’s rate on purchasing – tenants say they’re stuck with exposed pipes in the hallways, holes in walls and floors, fire hazards, cut phone lines and other problems, while rents are predicted to rise as high as $10,000 a month.
“My apartment has been 90 degrees, there’s obviously something wrong, and pipes are everywhere,” said Altcheck, who was told his rent would increase by 50 percent. “This was at one time an institution, now it’s ... like a war zone.”
By Sara Stefanini, City Limits WEEKLY, October 30, 2006, Number: 559
When Douglas Altcheck first heard rumors last fall that Manhattan House, the 583-unit building where he’s rented an apartment for 25 years, would be converted to condominiums, he thought he would finally have an opportunity to become a homeowner.
But he soon heard more rumors that the owners, to maximize their profit on the building that covers an entire city block, would be offering an “insider’s rate” less attractive than the norm to tenants who insisted on staying, instead trying to empty the building through a variety of unpleasant tactics to make way for wealthier outside investors.
“I thought this was my chance to purchase my apartment,” said Altcheck, a dermatologist whose rent was stabilized until four years ago, when it hit the $2,000 mark that allows rent to be decontrolled for those who earn $175,000 or more annually. “There are no laws protecting market-rate tenants.”
Though that’s a bit of an overstatement, tenants of the landmark building one year later are seeing their fears about the condo conversion coming true in a situation that could foretell the future for many other tenants, as there are currently more than 700 buildings pending condo conversions in Manhattan. That’s according to the office of the state attorney general, which approves the proposals to convert. The new owners appear to be pushing tenants out by disturbing them with construction work, raising rent drastically and refusing to renew contracts.
As the first condo conversion on such a large and expensive scale, the contentious relationship between Manhattan House’s tenants and landlord could be the shape of things to come citywide. “With Manhattan House, what’s new is the size of the project, and other ones that are slated to enter,” said Jonathan Miller, CEO of Miller Samuel, a real estate appraisal and consulting firm.
Like the Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town complexes, which sold this month for $5.4 billion, Manhattan House is one of a number of affordable-housing apartment buildings built as part of a postwar urban renewal project designed for middle-class New Yorkers. The 22-story edifice is the Upper East Side’s first white brick structure, covering an entire block on 66th Street between Second and Third Avenues, and includes a parking lot, retail stores and the largest private garden in the city. Close to 250 apartments remain rent-stabilized. Market-rate apartments go for $4,000 to $8,000, said Rafael Urquia, chairman of the tenants’ association.
Eventually, buildings like Peter Cooper Village, Stuyvesant Town and Manhattan House will become condos, said Larry Longua, a professor at the New York University Real Estate Institute. “This will ultimately convert,” Longua said. “There’s no rent that they can achieve to make up what they’ll pay in interest. Deals like this are going to empty out the middle class from Manhattan.”
But the Manhattan House Tenant’s Association is fighting aspects of the conversion using tactics that can at least stall the process and give them bargaining power, he added.
Tenants are drawing attention to what they claim is abuse of a state law called the Martin Act as a way to force the new owners to lower the inflated rental and purchasing prices they’ve imposed, said Altcheck, a member of the tenants’ association.
According to the Martin Act, Altcheck and his neighbors, who also fretted about their fate, shouldn’t even have heard about future plans for Manhattan House until its new owners, N. Richard Kalikow and Jeremiah O’Connor, Jr., filed a proposal for tenants to review and for the New York Attorney General to approve. On Feb. 1, 2006, several months after the rumors started spreading, Kalikow and O’Connor submitted a proposal of their plans for the property they had purchased in October 2005 for about $625 million, which real estate experts said set a national record for the sales price of a single residential building.
In response to the apparent violation, and what the tenants call “scare tactics” by the landlord to force them out before apartments go on the market, the tenants’ association this past summer filed a complaint with the attorney general. It claims that to bankroll their purchase, Kalikow, O’Connor and Credit Suisse Bank, which backed them, publicly sold bonds. In doing so, they released details about the conversion before it was reviewed.
David Rozenholc, an attorney for the tenants’ association, said he is focusing on how the sale was funded. “The way this deal was financed is a new sort of creation, it’s one of the newer inventions in financing and buying.”
New York Life Insurance Company sold the building at the peak of the housing boom for more than $1 million per apartment. Kalikow and O’Connor bought the property as a joint venture between their two firms, Manchester Real Estate and Construction, LLC, and O’Connor North American Properties Partnership, respectively.
A spokeswoman for the owners would only confirm that the building is being transformed to condominiums.
Keeping conversion plans under wraps, as the Martin Act requires, protects tenants from hearing false rumors or moving out prematurely, said Urquia, an international corporate lawyer.
Credit Suisse posted details about the building’s future on bond-rating Web sites such as Fitch Ratings, the tenants’ association says. It also claims that O’Connor’s son and business partner, William, discussed the plan at a Columbia Business School alumni seminar on Dec. 8, which some Manhattan House tenants attended.
Allan Starr, an attorney for the owners, did not return phone calls. In a letter he sent the attorney general’s office this August which the tenants’ association provided, Starr said his clients have not and will not “engage in any pre-sales or other activity that violates the Martin Act.” He also said that William O’Connor merely used Manhattan House as an example while lecturing on other real estate issues, and didn’t realize there were residents in the audience.
But tenants think releasing the information was part of a larger effort to intimidate renters into leaving before the construction to renovate, remove asbestos and install central air conditioning is complete. They have also accused the owners of beginning the asbestos work before receiving the go-ahead from the attorney general, significantly hiking rent prices and using other methods to push out rent-stabilized tenants.
A spokesman for Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said he could not comment on an ongoing case.
As they wait to see whether their legal challenge will bear fruit – optimally forcing the owners to lower the rent hikes and improve the insider’s rate on purchasing – tenants say they’re stuck with exposed pipes in the hallways, holes in walls and floors, fire hazards, cut phone lines and other problems, while rents are predicted to rise as high as $10,000 a month.
“My apartment has been 90 degrees, there’s obviously something wrong, and pipes are everywhere,” said Altcheck, who was told his rent would increase by 50 percent. “This was at one time an institution, now it’s ... like a war zone.”
Petition concerning conditions at Manhattan House
This Petition documents some of the deplorable and illegal acts being visited on the tenants of Manhattan House by Messrs. N. Richard Kalikow and Jeremiah W. O’Connor, MH Residential, and their Managing Agent, Prudential Douglas Elliman, in utter contempt and disregard for directives issued by the State Attorney General and the health, safety and well being of the tenants.
Click here to read the petition
Click here to read the petition
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Impact of documents uncovered by Freedom of Information Act
Based on documents uncovered by Manhattan House tenants' rights under FOIL (Freedom of Information Law), a letter is sent to the New York State Attorney General.
The letter describes problems caused by the Sponsor's actions. These problems include: asbestos exposure; vermin infestation; fire hazards; lack of an engineering inspection; and excessive vacancies.
Read the letter here.
The letter describes problems caused by the Sponsor's actions. These problems include: asbestos exposure; vermin infestation; fire hazards; lack of an engineering inspection; and excessive vacancies.
Read the letter here.
Monday, September 18, 2006
Pioneering Condo Conversion Loan Challenged
Just learned that Commercial Mortgage Alert, a real estate industry publication, wrote about the Manhattan House condominium conversion controversy in its July 28, 2006 issue.
"Tenants of a big Manhattan apartment complex are taking action in an attempt to derail the property's conversion to condos, claiming their rights were violated by a pioneering securitization of the conversion loan."
Read the full article here.
"Tenants of a big Manhattan apartment complex are taking action in an attempt to derail the property's conversion to condos, claiming their rights were violated by a pioneering securitization of the conversion loan."
Read the full article here.
Formal request to investigate Manhattan House lenders and sponsors
On August 17th, David Rozenholc requested a formal investigation by the New York State Department of Law into the conduct of Manhattan House's new owners and their lenders.
Read the entire letter here.
Read the entire letter here.
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
More on asbestos/windows installation problem
Posted below are two August 11, 2006 letters pertaining to the asbestos/windows installation problem.
David Rozenholc's letter informing the Attorney General's office that the sposor is ignoring their order regarding the asbestos in the building.
View the letter here.
Allan Starr's letter of reply.
View the letter here.
David Rozenholc's letter informing the Attorney General's office that the sposor is ignoring their order regarding the asbestos in the building.
View the letter here.
Allan Starr's letter of reply.
View the letter here.
Friday, August 11, 2006
Danger Asbestos!
Many tenants have reported sightings of "Danger Asbestos" signs in the building.
A photograph of one, along with asbestos removal equipment, was taken last Thursday August 3, 2006. This sign and the equipment were seen in a public hallway.
See the Danger Asbestos photo
A photograph of one, along with asbestos removal equipment, was taken last Thursday August 3, 2006. This sign and the equipment were seen in a public hallway.
See the Danger Asbestos photo
Martin Act violation allegations
In a August 4, 2006 letter from Allan Starr to the Attorney General's office provides the sponsor's position on the tenants' concerns about the conversion.
Most of the letter is about the tenants' claims that the sponsor has violated New York State's Martin Act - the legislation that governs condominium conversions.
View the letter here.
Most of the letter is about the tenants' claims that the sponsor has violated New York State's Martin Act - the legislation that governs condominium conversions.
View the letter here.
Formal request to investigate several issues in condo conversion
In a July 28, 2006 letter, David Rozenholc formally requests the New York State Department of Law investigate several issues in the proposed condo conversion.
Among the issues are:
-the tenants' right to hire building engineers
-the sponsor breeched its promise to renew market-rate tenant leases
-the harrasment of tenants
View the letter here.
Among the issues are:
-the tenants' right to hire building engineers
-the sponsor breeched its promise to renew market-rate tenant leases
-the harrasment of tenants
View the letter here.
Request for AG's office to resolve dispute
A July 21, 2006 letter from David Rozenholc to Allan Starr requests the Attorney General's office to resolve the dispute regarding the tenants' right to a building inspection.
View the letter here.
View the letter here.
Sponsor's behavior: letter to AG
A July 19, 2006 letter to the Attorney General's office explains how the sponsor has attempted to prevent the tenants' legal right to have an engineer inspect the building.
View the letter here
View the letter here
Tenants are entitled to building inspection
David Rozenholc, in a July 11, 2006 letter, explained why the tenants are entitled to a building inspection. They letter also expressed concerns about harrassment, asbestos, and the plans to install new windows.
View the letter here.
View the letter here.
Reply to request for building inspection
The sponsor's attorney sent a letter to David Rozenholc, dated June 30, 2006. The letter was a reply to the Manhattan House tenants' request to have its own engineers inspect the building.
View the letter here.
View the letter here.
Tenants' concerned about new window installation
June 2, 2006 a letter was sent to the sponsors describing tenants' concern about the plans to install new windows throughout the building.
View the letter here
View the letter here
Preliminary Objections Letter
May 24, 2006 a letter outlining Manhattan House tenants' preliminary objections to the proposed condominium conversion was sent to the Attorney General's office.
View the letter here.
View the letter here.
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