Ask any New Yorker about a bad experience with a landlord, and they’ll probably have a story or two to tell. Even so, few of us can imagine the horror endured by residents of Bushwick’s 98 Linden Street, whose landlords were arrested last month for sending henchmen with sledgehammers to demolish apartments where people were still living.
Though extreme, that kind of landlord abuse is sadly not an anomaly in our neighborhood. As Bushwick real estate grows ever hotter, tenants in rent-stabilized apartments are increasingly subject to neglect, harassment, and other unsavory tactics by predatory landlords trying to push them out to make room for more lucrative, market-rate renters.
Tomorrow (Friday) at noon, ACABO (Allied Communities Against Buy-Outs), a new coalition fighting displacement of long-time residents in North Brooklyn and Ridgewood, is hosting a rally in Maria Hernandez Park to raise awareness of tenants’ rights to stand up to bullying landlords and remain in their homes.
