Disabled People Are the Canaries in the Coal Mine
The disabled community has responded to the adversities they face by organizing for legal rights that protect their autonomy and access to public life. But these rights are increasingly under attack.
2 min read
The
recently ran a story about a New York landlord, Alistair Economakis, who is trying to convert the five-story East Village tenement he owns into an 11,000-square-foot mansion for himself and his family. The building formerly housed fifteen rent-stabilized apartments, whose rents ranged from $675 to $1200 per month. So far Economakis has been able to buy off six of the tenants, and has renovated and converted the spaces into a home with which he, his wife, and his two children are making do.
But the remaining tenants are fighting back:
At its core, the fight involves a law allowing landlords to displace rent-stabilized tenants if the landlords will use the space as their primary residence. The Economakis family has prevailed, thus far, on the principle that the law applies even to a building this large. But the tenants continue to press the notion that given the scope of the proposed home — which calls for seven bathrooms, a gym and a library — the owners are just trying to clear them out so they can sell the building off to become so many market-rate condos.
As evidence that they have no such intention, the landlords emphasize how much they love the neighborhood, especially its working-class history:
In Manhattan, it seems, the super-rich want have the working class and eat it too.
The Times's coverage of the struggle is characteristically even-handed, depicting both landlords and tenants as in enviable positions:
In a way, each faction is living a version of the New York real estate dream. Anyone might envy the Economakises, who work at a family-owned apartment-management company and lucked into buying the building for $1.3 million — what some one-bedroom condos in the area cost today. They have both the cash and the connections to create a sprawling showpiece. But there are also countless New Yorkers who would sacrifice their firstborns (or at least a beloved pet) for a charming if cramped perch like [tenant] Mr. Boyd’s in a coveted neighborhood where comparable spaces command twice or three times as much.
Evidently, the Times regards affordable housing in New York as but a dream, and rent-stabilization as a luxury.
Read the whole story here.
For information about the tenants' struggle, visit their website.