Published: Sunday - September 28, 2008
Words by Allen Starbury
DJ Kool Herc (pictured above) has worked with the building's tenants over the past year. (Photo: earwaks.com)
1520 Sedgwick Avenue, a Bronx New York apartment building that has been recognized as the birthplace of hip-hop, is scheduled to sell next week, despite several attempts to save it as a historical landmark.
According to the New York Times, the building's landlord is expected to withdraw it from the city's Mitchell-Lama moderate housing program -- which offers owners incentives such as low-rate mortgages and tax breaks in exchange for charging tenants low to moderate rents for a certain period of time -- by paying off the mortgage with a $5 million payment. By doing so, it will be free to be sold to an investment group led by Mark Karasick, a high-profile real estate developer, whose interest in the building has perplexed tenant advocates.
The current tenants, along with housing advocates, have tried to legally block the sale to Mr. Karasick's group by filing a lawsuit in State Supreme Court. The lawsuit argued that the city had to adhere to the State Environmental Quality Review Act before allowing the buyout to go forward. The group won a temporary restraining order the day that it filed. On Friday (September 26), the court ruled against the tenant group.
"They were unsuccessful and we're proceeding to close," Steven Frankel, the lawyer for 1520 Sedgwick Associates (the landlord group), told the paper.
Earlier this year, the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development had rejected the sale of 1520 Sedgwick, saying the sale price to Mr. Karasick significantly exceeded the building's assessed value, which is about $7.5 million, and was not sustainable.
"While the owners of 1520 Sedgwick have a legal right to buy out of the Mitchell-Lama program, the building's residents have made an offer that we believe is more than fair," said Shaun Donovan, the commissioner for the housing preservation department. "In this light, it is difficult to understand why the owners would choose to put the affordability of over 100 families' homes at risk."
Hip-hop legend DJ Kool Herc has been one of the main supporters of the tenants of the building, and has actively helped oppose the building owner's plans to remove the building from an affordable housing program.
During the 1970s, the DJ helped birth what was later referred to as "hip-hop," when he began spinning records at parties in the building's basement recreation room. Since then, the genre has become a worldwide phenomenon.
The 100-unit apartment building -- located at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue -- was previously deemed eligible to be listed on national and state registers of historic sites.
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