After The Demolition: A Tenant’s Story
By Marc Friedlander

Imagine living in a building where the landlord is negligent no matter how much you complain or how much legal action you take. Imagine having a few bricks falling from the facade of your house—and the cops show up, drag you out of bed and tell you they’ll let you back in the building in a few minutes. Imagine them then telling you they are going to destroy your home and all your possessions, and kill your pets. Imagine telling them you are getting a court order to stop them, whereupon they begin flattening the place to the ground. Imagine the newspaper portraying the story like the building was collapsing—when it wasn’t.

Sounds like it couldn’t happen? Well, it did in January, at 172 Stanton St. on the Lower East Side. I was a tenant there. I lost my life’s work in the demolition. I am a film/videomaker, visual artist, archivist, and musician. I lived in the building for over 10 years. Some of the other tenants had lived there as long as 40 years. Their pets were killed and their possessions destroyed, because they weren’t allowed to retrieve them. Meanwhile, cops, firemen, and people from the mayor’s office and the demolition company were in our apartments all day—and when I sneaked into the building to try to get some of my stuff, some things were already missing from my apartment.

City officials told us that if we wanted any help with housing, we would have to stay in homeless shelters for 60 days. If we stayed on a friend’s couch, we would be classified as not being homeless. I’ve been told that one of the elderly tenants has been hospitalized as a result of the stress. Another tenant is on the street because he couldn’t take staying in the crack-infested shelter they sent him to.

When people hear this story they wonder if it was a squat. IT WASN’T! It was a privately-owned building, where people who had lived there for decades worked, paid their taxes, and paid their rent. We know something fishy went on. I believe what happened at 172 Stanton St. was a criminal act of the lowest and most despicable nature. I hope someone comes forward with information to help us in our struggle for justice and restitution. If you have any information that could help us in our pending lawsuit and to make sure that this never happens to innocent people ever again, please leave a message at (212) 229-7690 or e-mail maxjones69@hotmail.com. If you want to know more details about what happened, go to the Web site at http://www.outpost-video.com and click on the story of 172 Stanton Street.