Letters to the Editor:

Beleaguered New York City landlords can sleep peacefully tonight. For John Tierney’s recent New York Times column (Jan. 28) puts an end to their worst nightmare, a tenant who fights back. Now, landlords needn’t worry when the next tenant stands up to their army of lawyers, anti-rent-regulation lobbyists and real-estate brokers. For Mr. Tierney makes clear that he is their self-appointed guardian and will protect their agenda at all costs. Even though Mr. Tierney is aware of government filings that show the wealthy landlord’s (Elise Frick) application for deregulation claims there are no tenants in the building and that several floors have been completely gutted (neither of which statements are true), he chooses to ignore any and all such evidence. Instead, he simply takes aim at a tenant for trying to keep her home.

While Mr. Tierney acknowledged receiving the documentation I gave him, he chose not to report that in 1996, Ms. Frick lost in Housing Court when Justice Martin Shulman found that I have a valid written lease which established “a landlord-tenant relationship between Frick and Hefti.” His column also fails to point out that Feathered Nest Realty works for Ms. Frick. Why else would they subsidize the bitter legal battle of a wealthy landlord?

In addition, the columnist is well aware that Thistle Brown (Ms. Frick’s co-plaintiff against me) is a primary resident of the state of Maine (where she owns and operates an art gallery, votes, holds her driver’s license, etc.). State Division of Housing and Community Renewal records reveal that Ms. Brown, only, ever wintered up stairs in an apartment other than the one in question. Significantly, Mr. Tierney knows that Ms. Brown’s old apartment has been vacant ever since Ms. Frick’s litigation against me started. But for the last few winters, when Ms. Brown has come down from Maine, she has chosen, instead, to live rent-free in Ms. Frick’s garden apartment in the brownstone next door.

The recent appearance of Ms. Frick’s family in the Styles section of the Times (Jan. 17, party at the Frick Collection) does not create the impression that she is in need of assistance. But the Frick family must nonetheless be grateful to Mr. Tierney for his act of gallantry in taking aim at a tenant who has lost her home.

Susan K. Hefti
Manhattan