Charas Wins Court Victory:
Judge Says Center Can’t Be Evicted Without ‘Good Cause’

Civil Court Judge Lucy Billings has determined that real-estate developer Gregg L. Singer cannot terminate the Charas/El Bohio cultural center’s lease on a former elementary school on East Ninth Street without “good cause.” The ruling, handed down in mid-March, gives the Lower East Side community and arts center the right to continue their lease of the building, at 605 East Ninth St. Judge Billings also found that Charas may have further rights under the Loft Law, which gives tenant protections to residents of commercial properties.

Singer, who bought the building from the city at an auction in 1998, filed papers to evict the 21-year-old institution last year, the day after the property was transferred to him. Singer requested a summary judgment from landlord-tenant court, which would have gotten Charas evicted immediately. However, Charas attorney Catharine Grad argued that the terms of the deed gave the center constitutional due-process rights.

Singer also began a public-relations campaign to rehabilitate his reputation, as his frequent visits to Charas have been consistently met with angry demonstrations from the Lower East Side community. Central to this campaign was a mass mailing characterizing the community center as a vacant building, and stating his wishes to rent the space to not-for-profit organizations. Despite this statement, Singer refused to negotiate with Charas; when asked why, the developer’s attorneys quipped that “[Charas] could not afford it.”

Singer has been advertising space in the building at $32 a square foot for a 10-year lease, or about $46,000 a month per floor—a rather large sum for community organizations. “Nonprofit organizations and schools may prefer to do a capital campaign to raise money for new space and have a lower annual rent payment,” the ad suggests. “Therefore, a one-time, up-front tenant payment to the landlord in the amount of $2,083,080 per floor will give the tenant a $20/sf rent for a 17,359 sf floor.”

Charas’ lawyers and representatives maintain that Singer does not intend to abide by the community-facility use restrictions placed on the building, and that he intends to develop the building as a youth hostel for international tourists only.

Singer’s ads list all five floors and the basement as vacant, so potential tenants are often surprised to see demonstrators when they come by. On several occasions, they have left in disgust after finding out that the building was already occupied. One real-estate company, Insignia Financial, besieged by phone calls from Charas supporters, denied that they’d ever visited the building—although the visitors that day identified themselves as being from “Insignia ESG,” and one looked exactly like a photograph on Insignia’s Website.

To date, Singer has not found any tenants for the building. Meanwhile, the murder a year ago of Charas director Armando Perez remains unsolved. Last November, charges were dropped against four suspects named by Perez’s widow, Mary Ann Perez.

Charas supporters and Perez’s family accuse the Police Department—which initially categorized the case as an accident, although Perez was severely beaten—of mishandling the case.

“This investigation has been a disaster,” Ron Kuby, pro bono lawyer for Perez’s estate, told the Manhattan weekly Our Town. “Clearly, if a friend of the mayor’s was killed the results would be much different.”

The NYPD claimed the murder is still under investigation, but Mary Ann Perez told Our Town that “the police don’t even return my calls any more.”

For more information, visit www.freespeech.org/charas.