This month in real estate history

This month in real estate history

From left: 241 E. 7th Street in 1968, Chinatown at the turn of the 20th century, 1930s-era bungalows in the Rockaways
From left: 241 E. 7th Street in 1968, Chinatown at the turn of the 20th century, 1930s-era bungalows in the Rockaways

1968: Anti-rent control protest flares at auction

Property owners opposed to rent control laws shouted angrily during an auction the city held 47 years ago this month to sell dozens of tax-delinquent properties, including apartment buildings.

Shouts of “Sucker!” and “You’ll be sorry!” were heard during the proceedings in the Grand Ballroom of the Roosevelt Hotel at 45 East 45th Street in Midtown. 

The city’s Department of Real Estate sought to sell 123 buildings it had taken title to after their owners fell behind on property taxes. Many of them were small, multi-family structures with units under rent control. At the auction, the city accepted bids for 72 of those buildings. 

The faction interrupting the sale said landlords had lost the properties because the laws regulating rent limited the income the buildings generated and made it impossible to maintain the structures. 

The anti-rent control groups included the United Taxpayers, the American Property Rights Association and the Metropolitan Fair Rent Committee. 

Most of the properties auctioned were located in the outer boroughs, but six were in Manhattan. They included two in the East Village: the 22-unit 241 East 7th Street, which sold for $19,300, and the six-story 254 East 4th Street, which sold for $20,100.

1930: Rules tighten on unlicensed real estate fees 

Real estate brokers were prohibited from giving finder’s fees to unlicensed individuals who were actively involved in arranging a real estate transaction by an opinion the New York State attorney general issued 85 years ago this month.

The attorney general released the statement in response to a question about unlicensed persons canvassing friends and colleagues to interest them in buying a bungalow on behalf of an unidentified real estate company.

The real estate firm was offering a $1,500 bungalow as the top prize for the most successful people in procuring buyers. The company would pay others 5 percent of the business that they generated. 

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The attorney general said that activity too closely resembled the negotiation of a real estate transaction, and because of that was not permitted.

However, the decision said brokers were still allowed to pay fees or “prizes” to unlicensed individuals who were passively involved in a sale, who simply “procured the job for the [broker] to sell the property.”

While finder’s fees for nonlicensed individuals are now illegal, a 2014 law clarified that brokers are permitted to give rebates to buyers, sellers, landlords or tenants involved in a transaction.

1907: City plans park to replace Chinatown

The city proposed demolishing the heart of Chinatown in Lower Manhattan 108 years ago, to turn it into a park.

New York’s then most powerful governmental body, the Board of Estimate, approved the proposal to level a city block bounded by Mott, Pell and Doyers streets and the Bowery and make way for the 1.5 acre recreational area. That block is where Chinatown first started in the 1860s and 1870s, and by 1900 the population had grown to more than 6,000 Chinese, the vast majority of them men.

An article in The New York Times at the time used racist invective to describe the Asian residents of the neighborhood, who it said participated in a wide range of immoral and illegal activities such as gambling, opium use and bribery, all in cramped quarters. It was, “a citadel of concentrated depravity.”

The article said there was no opposition to the plan the day of the vote, and none was expected when a public hearing was scheduled a few weeks later.

The city proposed the park despite the opening in 1897 of the large Mulberry Bend Park (now Columbus Park) just one block to the west.

Yet when the plan came before the hearing, no one came to support it, and in fact many arrived in opposition to the demolition, which was scrapped.