Late last summer, news surfaced about the sale of 305 E. 11th St. and 310 E. 12th St. (
above), adjacent multifamily residential buildings between First Avenue and Second Avenue.
The deal for the 89-unit buildings, owned by the Chissick family since the late 1960s, was for $58 million.
Since then, we've heard from residents about significant rent increases, evictions, and alleged apartment warehousing at the buildings.
As a result, residents here have advanced their efforts in recent months by forming the GoldinFinch Tenant Association. They are hosting a rally tomorrow afternoon (March 26) with the help of the Cooper Square Committee. (NYC Comptroller Brad Lander is also expected to be in attendance.)
Per a media advisory:
Tenants, advocates and elected officials will protest the actions of private equity firm Meadow Partners, which purchased two multifamily buildings in the East Village. Shortly after the purchase, Meadow Partners and their operating partner 60 Guilders/620 MGMT began aggressively displacing long-term tenants and hiking up rents.
The rally will call for Albany to enact "Good Cause" legislation to prevent arbitrary evictions and unconscionable rent hikes, as well as city-level legislation to curb the apartment "warehousing" and "frankensteining" that Meadow and other landlords are practicing.
Many tenants have lived in the neighborhood for decades and have strong ties to the community. The tenant association ("GoldinFinch Tenant Association") is named after housing advocate
Frances Goldin [a longtime resident here] and art critic Charles Finch. Those residents, as well as other notable tenants who lived in the building, will also be honored at the rally.
Debby Lee Cohen, a neighbor who said she had known Mr. Finch for 40 years, said that besides his health, he might have been anxious about the future of the building, which had just been sold. He was a longtime resident who had a rent-controlled apartment.
The rally starts tomorrow outside 310 E. 12th St. at 1 p.m.
The tenant association also shared this building fact sheet (
click on the image for a bigger view)...