Rudolph Giuliani
1994: Giuliani launches program to sell foreclosed rental buildings
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani announced a plan dubbed “Building Blocks” to turn over thousands of tax-delinquent apartment buildings that the city had repossessed for a nominal cost to new private owners, 17 years ago this month.
At the time, the city owned about 29,500 units in 2,910 multifamily buildings that it had taken title to because the owners were unable to pay their real estate taxes.
The program first targeted buildings in Central Harlem, Bedford-Stuyvesant and the South Bronx. At the time, officials said it would cost the city $175 million a year for management and upkeep of the distressed properties in its portfolio.
The program was one in a long string of initiatives by New York City mayors to remove residential multifamily buildings from municipal care and return them to private hands.
From the 1970s through 1993, when Giuliani was elected, the city had taken title to thousands of properties after their landlords defaulted on taxes and the city foreclosed on them. The city halted that foreclosure process in 1993 and now sells the liens representing the outstanding debt on the properties to trusts that pursue payback from the owner. The city also arranges third-party transfers to a new owner.
Aided by a revived economy, Giuliani’s effort appears to have borne fruit. From 1994 to late 2000, the number of apartment units the city owned fell by 59 percent to 12,362. By 2000 there were only 133 apartment buildings still owned by the city.
1963: REBNY follows Better Business Bureau in first-ever room-count standards
To curb inaccurate residential real estate advertising that exaggerated the size of apartments, the Better Business Bureau of Metropolitan New York and the Real Estate Board of New York adopted standards defining how rooms should be counted, 48 years ago this month.
Both organizations were responding to complaints from consumers that advertisements deceptively counted foyers, terraces, alcove kitchens and balconies as rooms, thereby inflating the size of the apartment in ads. The new rules stated that those areas and others (such as bathrooms) could not be included in a property’s room count, although they would be listed.
In the first week of the month, the Better Business Bureau published its new guidelines to be used by those advertising properties in the greater metro area, defining what was technically considered a room. REBNY issued its own, very similar, guidelines about a week later. The Better Business Bureau’s guidelines went into effect on Sept. 15, 1963, while REBNY’s did so on Jan. 1, 1964.
1937: Nation’s largest low-income housing project opens in Brooklyn
Tenants began moving into the Williamsburg Houses in Brooklyn — the largest neighborhood redevelopment rental complex in the United States at the time — 74 years ago this month.
The move-ins started with 45 families, many of whom formerly lived in dark tenement flats with only cold water. The new buildings, which included 1,622 apartments, were located on four “super blocks,” bounded by Leonard Street, Bushwick Avenue and Maujer and Scholes streets, in central Williamsburg.
Rents ranged from about $17.80 per month for a two-bedroom to $28.80 per month for a five-bedroom.
More than 25,000 New York residents applied for the limited number of spaces in the Modernist-style buildings designed by architect Richmond Shreve, which were set 15 degrees off the traditional street grid in an effort to get more light in the rooms. Some 600 low-rise buildings, mostly frame construction, were demolished to make way for the project.
The Depression-era Project Works Administration developed the 20 four-story buildings at a cost of $12.8 million. The 23-acre complex was managed by the New York City Housing Authority, which was founded just a few years earlier, in 1934.
Compiled by Adam Pincus