Workers have removed the construction netting from 47 E. Third St., soon to be the single-family Economakis Dream Mansion.
Here's a shot of the building, once a 15-unit tenement, from September 2009... So long pesky fire escapes!
Around that time, Scoopy at The Villager got a tour of the building. You can read that here.
it's still a tenement. reminds me of people in the suburbs who try to turn split-level ranch houses into mansions. they still look like split-level ranches.
ReplyDeleteWhat Scumbags..hope the building gets tagged by all of the Graffiti Artists.
ReplyDeleteHow dare they try to renovate and live in their own property. Total scum. They probably even believe peopel are not allowed to steal and vandalize their property. I hope the first tagger takes one in the farhead.
ReplyDeletekarma will take care of all those involved in this.
ReplyDeleteYou do know the tenants got buyouts which I am sure is the most money any of those tenants have ever seen in their whole life? What they did was perfectly legal and for those people that wish destruction upon their property is just severely jealous and a loser.
ReplyDeleteThe neighborhood rumor I've heard is that they're waiting out however long it has to officially be "owner-occupied"...then they'll rent out part of it and live in part of it. Dunno if that's true or not.
ReplyDeleteWonder where the wee Economaki will go to school?
The tenants who got buyouts were screwed. The money they got was about enough to move outside the neighborhood. Economalakis is a symbol of why we need a REVOLUTION in this country. We do not forgive and we do not forget. Put cake on his steps and keep doing it.
ReplyDeletewhen you are living in fear of eviction, or the landlord stops essential services, or construction/destruction is going on around you - the money sounds pretty good.
ReplyDeletehat is until you find out how little it really is in this world.
cyrus - lots of things that are legal that should not be!
From the Villager, 2010
ReplyDeleteGeorge Boyd, a longtime tenant at 47 E. Third St. — an East Village tenement where tenants unsuccessfully tried to stave off a mass eviction effort — died June 19 at Beth Israel Hospice. He was at the hospice 15 hours before he expired.
He was 71, and had suffered from heart problems. But friends and family members said his having to leave the E. Third St. building exacerbated his deteriorating health.
The way some people revere property and the american dream of owning it reminds me that when america was founded only landowners were allowed to vote. That is what this country was built on but supposedly we have come a long way and allowed the little peoplek, as well as women, to vote.
ReplyDeleteOur moral code says that basic rights are food, clothing and a roof. Let's not forget the roof when you revere the landowner who can take away your roof at the drop of a hat.
Buying a vacant property is the way most people do it, and it is NOT the same or equivalent as buying a building and kicking out tenants who've lived there for decades.
NY is historically a city of renters and renters need to be protected. This is a most vicious example of the failure of our moral code.
Honestly, they didn't do anything wrong. The people living in that building all worked the system and got help from the government while having jobs that made upwards of $60,000. They owned the house and they wanted it for their family. Those people who hate on them...stop complaining get your lives together and stfu.
ReplyDelete@ Anon 11:55. You certainly are foaming mouthed advocate of private property rights. You are correct that they did nothing wrong in a legal sense. Merely stretching a reasonable exception for landlord tenancy in an apartment to the rather unreasonable point of evicting 20 + tenants from the multi- unit dwelling they had purchased, that had always been a multi-unit dwelling. So, legally, you are apparantly correct in your judgement. But, morally you and the property owner are have a bankrupt position. The wholesale conversion of building intended for the many for the pleasure of the few is exactly the cancer that is eating at our nation's soul. Now, stfu.
ReplyDeleteany truth to the rumor that the economakises are trying to buy up the catholic worker mary house building for a conversion to luxurey condos?
ReplyDelete