NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) — Tenants of a Bronx building that partially collapsed in December are concerned that the heavy rain that has pounded the city will pose more structural problems or safety concerns, and video of the property from Saturday evening shows rain gushing into the lobby.
Late Saturday afternoon the Legal Aid Society released video of the surge of water pouring into the lobby of 1915 Billingsley Terrace in Morris Heights, demanding that the city assess if the building is safe for occupancy.
“There is flooding on the top floors, and it seems to be infiltrating basically down six floors, and then pouring into the lobby through the electrical fixtures,” Supervising Attorney with the nonprofit’s Housing Justice Unit Jessica Bellinder told 1010 WINS/WCBS 880.
The New York City Department of Buildings heeded the call and inspected the property on Saturday night, which resulted in a violation being issued against the landlord for failure to maintain the building, officials said.
According to the DOB, inspectors found water leaking from the ceiling into the lobby and water damage in a sixth-floor apartment, but no water actively leaking in the apartment at the time of inspection.
There was no water pooling on the roof, but a broken glass skylight was found.
Inspectors “found no additional unsafe conditions,” the DOB said, and the building’s superintendent was on the scene cleaning the lobby with caution cones around the water leak.
The Legal Aid Society filed a lawsuit against the property’s landlords—David Kleiner, Yonah Roth, 1915 Realty LLC and Moishe “Mo” Doe—along with the DOB, the Department of Housing Prevention and Development and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
The lawsuit seeks immediate repairs to over 144 housing violations (which have increased to 208 since the lawsuit was filed), of which more than half are considered hazardous, the Legal Aid Society said.
It also seeks to lift a partial vacate order and allow displaced tenants to return to their homes, force the landlords to rebuild the collapsed portion of the building and restore units to their original layout and size.
In addition to the physical problems with the building, the Legal Aid Society also claims that “the landlords have engaged in blatantly illegal behavior that has harassed and endangered the tenants by forcing them to sign agreements stipulating that the conditions in their apartments were fully repaired, despite the deplorable conditions.”
The lawsuit was filed in the wake of the building’s partial collapse on Dec. 11, 2023, when an entire corner of the seven-story building crumbled and temporarily displaced over 100 tenants.
Bellinder considers the leak to be salt in the wound for the building’s residents.
“It feels like it’s one more insult to injury after having been vacated right around the holidays and being in shelter and in limbo for quite a period of time and then being pushed back into the building while work is being done,” she said.
Kleiner’s reputation as a problematic landlord goes beyond the Billingsley Terrace property, emphasized by a rally held against him earlier this month in front of another building he owns, 124 East 176th St.
The rally was held by the building’s tenants association and elected officials in support of the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, which would create pathways for residents to purchase their building from a neglectful landlord.
Tenants of the East 176th Street property referred to Kleiner as Dracula throughout the rally, comparing him to the monster while expressing the deplorable conditions and health concerns at their apartment.
“Every New Yorker should be safe in their home and feel like it is a place of refuge, and so many New Yorkers don’t get that benefit because of how their buildings are being maintained,” Bellinder told 1010 WINS/WCBS 880.