Tenants To Protest Abusive Landlords In Wburg-Greenpoint
Tenants of six apartment buildings in Williamsburg, Greenpoint, and on the border of Bedford-Stuyvesant, are planning a rally outside 193 Bedford Avenue tonight at 6 p.m., to protest what they and their lawyers say is “a shocking pattern of arson fires, unauthorized demolitions, and Building Department (DOB) vacate orders” by landlords allegedly want to replace them with newer tenants willing to pay higher rents.
The site at 193 Bedford Avenue currently has three active violations against it, as well as a partial stop work order for unsafe scaffolding and a partial vacate order since their last inspection on July 10. The 2nd through 5th floors were deemed by the DOB to be “not structurally sound.”
Domingos Fialho, a former tenant at 193 Bedford, is living with his baby in temporary housing elsewhere in the city while his wife, Tranquilina, is in the hospital in a “semi-coma” and “near death” from dangerous conditions at the apartment, caused by demolition begun by new landlord, Isaac Jacob, while they were still tenants.