8.16.2011

chinatown tenants fight real estate firm's "aggressive tactics"

Check out this New York Times story on Madison Capital, a boutique Manhattan real estate investment firm that has reportedly been using "aggressive tactics" to push rent-stabilized tenants out of their aging Chinatown apartments. It's Gentrification 101: Her Chinatown Home Is 'Underperforming.'

Tenants like 58-year-old Zhi Qin Zheng, a garment worker who has been living in her Delancey Street walk-up for decades, and refuses to give up her home to Madison Capital's old-school hardball tactics:
Madison Capital stopped plastering or fixing leaks and cut the heat. It tried to evict her when she was a few days late with the rent and accused another Chinese mother of two of being a prostitute. It called the police when tenants met in the lobby. It installed cameras in the halls and demanded that tenants remove Lunar New Year signs from their doors.

Sitting in a tiny kitchen, with a view across Delancey to one of those silver, faux-industrial-style million-dollar condos with rooftop birch trees, Mrs. Zheng, 58, smiles and waves her hand as if to bat away flies.

"It is battles all the time here; lots of people are leaving," Mrs. Zheng says through an interpreter. "I know my rights, but I am nervous."
You have to respect the stubborn Chinese lady who refuses to take a buyout. This is her home, she knows her rights, and she's not going anywhere! More here: Gentrification Wars Once Again Focus on 61 Delancey.

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