DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN — Forty Albee Square West families, who forced the city to agree to compensate them if it evicts them from their rent-stabilized apartments under eminent domain, celebrated with a communal pot-luck supper this past Tuesday.

The properties involved are three red brick-and-stone row houses nearly a century old, known as 402, 404 and 406 Albee Square West near the corner of Willoughby Street. For many years, the buildings faced the blank brick two-story wall of the parking garage of the Albee Square Mall, now almost completely demolished.

The large area adjoining the former mall, including several buildings on Duffield Street, is slated for eventual demolition as the site is cleared for a major development including office and retail space, a parking garage and a park. The city has indicated it might resort to the use of eminent domain process to acquire the properties for redevelopment.

At the party, attorney Jennifer Levy was presented with a bouquet and a birthday cake. She is the housing unit director for South Brooklyn Legal Services, which won the agreement from the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) on June. This terminates the tenants’ lawsuit in the New York State Appellate Court that sits in Brooklyn Heights.

Commemorative plaques were given to tenants Juan Garcia and Maritea Mendez along with Teresita Gaton, community organizer for Families United for Racial and Economic Equality (FUREE). Tenants celebrated in FUREE headquarters at 81 Willoughby St.

The city has agreed to give the tenants of the three residential buildings substantial monetary relocation benefits and protections, including Section 8 subsidies and a preference in all city-supervised affordable housing developments. Both FUREE and SBLS will assist the families in filing for any eligible benefits.

© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2008
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