City comes to the rescue of Bronx’s “birthplace of hip-hop”

The Bronx’s 1520 Sedgwick Avenue — a rundown affordable-housing apartment building sometimes credited as the “birthplace of hip-hop” — is now one step closer to repair after the sale of the building’s $6.2 million mortgage to a partnership between Workforce Housing Advisors and WinnResidential. The sale, financed in part by a $5.6 million loan from the city’s Housing Development Corporation, is intended as a prelude to a takeover of the property from the investors who bought it in 2008 and subsequently allowed it to deteriorate. The city funding comes from a $750 million program that aims to help responsible buyers take over distressed multi-family buildings that have fallen into disrepair. The new mortgage owners have filed to foreclose on the building, where D.J. Kool Herc once held famed hip-hop parties in the first-floor community room, and plan to buy it at a public auction, which is likely to be held next year. [NYT]