NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — Tenants and elected officials rallied outside Riverside Buildings in Brooklyn Heights on Wednesday to demand that the buildings' owner, the Pinnacle Group, address what they described as chronic neglect and harassment meant to force rent-stabilized tenants out.
"We have dealt with repeated rat infestations, and we are currently suffering from rat mites, which cause allergic reactions," said Jean Campbell, who has lived at Riverside since 1973. "The exterior brickwork is crumbling, with loose areas at ground level where rodents can enter. Living on the ground floor, I have routinely had buckets and tarps ready to catch water runoff from leaking pipes in the apartments above."
Another woman said that her daughter started naming the mice that populated their unit. "That's not OK, she should't have to get used to having mice in the house," she said. "The solution I was given? Get a cat."
The tenants were joined at the rally by NYS Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon and NYC Council Member Lincoln Restler, with Simon describing building leadership as having "categorically waged war on their tenants for decades."
According to the rally organizers, the Pinnacle Group recently filed a preliminary offering plan for condominium conversion. While the plan is a "non-eviction" conversion, the tenants claim that "such conversions are commonly used to pressure long-term rent-stabilized tenants out of their homes."
There are approximately 156 rent-stabilized apartments across the five buildings at 10, 20, and 30 Columbia Place and 24 and 32 Joralemon Street.
Restler—who grew up four blocks away from the Riverside Buildings—said that this situation is a prime example of a corporation and landlord neglecting tenants to try and profit.
"The team at Pinnacle are doing everything they can to make this building unlivable, to make the conditions unsafe," he said. "Look at the pictures behind me: stairwells falling apart, holes in ceilings, tiles falling off the bathroom walls, rats and mice in the building, cockroach infestations, a mite infestation of dead rodents in the walls that are getting tenants sick."
1010 WINS has reached out to Pinnacle for comment.
There is an ongoing lawsuit involving 20 families that live in the building as they fight eviction in housing court.
