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.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.
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."