Another Icon of the Counter-Culture Likely to Fall

As if the hostile takeover of the Chelsea weren’t bad enough, now developers are going after another monument of the counterculture, this time the birthplace of Hip-Hop, 1520 Sedgwick Ave. on the outskirts of the Bronx, where D.J. Kool Herc spun records back in the early 70s.  (NYT, Cityrooms Blog, "Tenants Might Buy Birthplace of HipHop" by Jennifer 8. Lee)  Though not quite of the Chelsea’s significance, the building is still a monument to a part of New York’s life and legacy that’s being swept under the carpet for the sake of the almighty dollar.  It’s also an outpost of affordable housing in a city that’s increasingly becoming merely a shopping mall for the super rich.

            There are some other parallels to the Chelsea as well.  The building is being bought by real estate mogul Mark Karasick for a reported $14 million, which is well beyond the $5-$6 million that housing advocates quoted in Lee’s article estimate it’s actually worth based on rental streams.  It’s comparable to the mystery as to why BD Hotels, a company that buys hotels, would agree to simply manage the Chelsea, a no-win situation where all they accomplish is to make themselves look like scum for desecrating an iconic institution.

As Lee’s article makes clear, Karasick knows that there’s only two ways to make money off of 1520 Sedgwick Avenue: either to throw out the rent-stabilized tenants, or to flip the building for a profit.  As for BD, the underlying motive is more difficult to fathom.  They are charging less for rooms than Stanley was, and their claims of high occupancy are almost certainly exaggerated.  We know of a few rooms that seem to have been warehoused for months after the long-term tenants vacated them.  (Stanley would have cleaned them up and rented them in 24 hours, tops.)  Add to that the huge increase in the size of the staff, and it’s hard to imagine that that this corporation is making more money than Stanley was.  Probably BD is looking for some sort of eventual ownership role in the hotel.  Are they trying to drive down the price by bankrupting
the hotel?

Whatever the particulars, there does seem to be some sort of financial scheme afoot.  Remember, Born and Drukier don’t care to put in a hard day’s work and pull down a regular salary.  These guys are after the big bucks. – Ed Hamilton