Assembly Member Tony Simone Dismisses Elderly NYCHA Tenants Fighting Forced Relocation As ‘Obstructionists’
Midtown South Community Council President John Mudd looks on as Chelsea Addition tenant Yu Story [r], 80, attempts to engage with NYS Assembly Member Tony Simone [l] at last weekend’s 20th Annual West Side Tenants Conference.
By Joe Maniscalco
New York State Assembly Member Tony Simone reportedly blew off at least two elderly NYCHA residents desperately fighting the demolition of their homes and dismissed them as nothing but “obstructionists” during a tenants conference held at Fordham University School of Law in Manhattan this past weekend, Work-Bites has learned.
Public housing tenants and their allies continuing to fight NYCHA’s $2 billion public-private scheme to level the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea [FEC] buildings and replace them with a new complex of mostly market rate luxury apartments stretching from Ninth to Tenth avenues were at the 20th Annual West Side Tenants Conference on Dec. 6 to let their elected officials know exactly how they feel.
That’s what 80-year-old Chelsea Addition tenant Yu Story and her neighbor Janet Rao were attempting to do when Story reportedly tried engaging with Assembly Member Simone [D-75th District] at the event.
Midtown South Community Council President John Mudd saw the entire exchange transpire and said, “Tony spoke with condescension—as he often does with the tenants—as Yu was trying to explain the pressure to move and her desire to stay in her home.”
FEC tenants and their allies have spent months attempting to enlist the aid of their local elected officials—most notably Council Member Erik Bottcher [D-3rd District] and Assembly Member Simone—in beating back a demolition plan already rejected by the community at large.
“[Tony] is determined to help the plan through—just as much as Bottcher,” Mudd told Work-Bites this week.
Public housing tenants at the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea campuses on Manhattan’s west side are still looking to their elected officials for help in halting the privatization and demolition of their homes.
Community Board 4 rejected the FEC demolition plan back on September 3. The board subsequently sent a letter to NYCHA head Lisa Bova-Hiatt and outgoing Mayor Eric Adams saying that while a Request for Proposal [RFP] was issued for renovation—“without any justification the project scope changed, instead to reflect full demolition.”
The board also said the Draft and Final Environmental Impact Studies [EIS] “demonstrated a lack of effort in mitigating impacts and do not proactively consider resident and MCB4 demands.”
“Any plan that moves forward,” the board continued, “must center on resident concerns and ensure that improvements are both real and sustained.”
FEC tenants have also amassed a petition with some 950 signatories opposing the demolition plan being pursued as part of the controversial RAD/PACT privatization program. They also demand a binding vote on the proposal.
NYCHA still does not yet have the final approval it needs from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for the demolition plan to move forward.
“This remains a proposal even though everyone acts like it’s a done deal—it is not a done deal,” Elliott-Chelsea Tenants Association leader Renee Keitt told Work-Bites in September. “We have 950 signatures against this.”
According to Mudd, Assembly Member Simone “spoke to [Ms. Story] as if she didn’t know what was going on, saying something about ‘obstructionists.’”
“Perhaps referring to the group opposing the demolition—meaning us,” Mudd explained. “[But] ‘us’ means Ms. Story as well. [Tony] further added, ‘We will get you new apartments.”
FEC public housing residents and their allies carried mock coffins to New York City Council Member Erik Bottcher’s doorstep on Sept. 13.
“Fear, Intimidation, and Coercion”
The Chelsea Addition located at 436 W. 27th Drive is known in the neighborhood as the “senior building” because it exclusively houses elderly New Yorkers who waited a long time to gain entry and become tenants. It is also one of the newer buildings on the FEC campuses—and among the first two buildings NYCHA wants to start demolishing so that Related Companies and its spinoff Essence Development can spend the better part of the next two decades erecting an array of towering new hi-rises—á la Hudson Yards.
NYCHA argues that the City of New York will get about 1,000 so-called “affordable” housing units on the site as a result of the deal, and that after relocating Chelsea Addition seniors can move into new apartments in about four years.
“I’m nervous,” Story told Work-Bites when we last visited her neat and comfortable apartment earlier this fall. “Every night I’m not sleeping because I just worry.”
NYCHA has since stepped up its efforts to drive Story and her elderly neighbors out of their apartments, launching what FEC tenants call a non-stop campaign of “fear, intimidation, and coercion” that includes ongoing legal actions.
On Dec. 4, State Supreme Court Judge David B. Cohen denied NYCHA’s request for a preliminary injunction ordering eight Chelsea Addition tenants to accept relocation and move out.
“Whose idea was it to have people in their 70s, 80s, and 90s move?” Judge Cohen remarked during the proceedings. “I would very much like to see that individual explain.”
NYCHA has since said it “may elect to pursue other avenues of legal proceedings against these residents for them to relocate.” But elderly Chelsea residents refusing to relocate and give up their Section 9 housing protections, continue to be harassed. They’ve also stopped receiving daily mail delivery.
NYCHA refuses to explain why that is, but a regional representative for the USPS told Work-Bites on Thursday building managers gave the Postal Service notice that the Chelsea Addition is “being redeveloped as part of a larger city project.”
“When a local government informs the Postal Service that addresses are not in service or no longer require mail delivery because of redevelopment, customers must pick up their mail at the local post office,” the representative said.
The USPS representative also claimed that some of the Chelsea Addition’s mailboxes have been vandalized as well—and that the Postal Service will not reestablish delivery service until the unserviceable mailboxes are repaired. Property owners and managers—in this case NYCHA—are responsible for properly maintaining mailboxes.
“When [Ms. Story] spoke about not receiving mail, Tony said he knew about it, and that it’s being corrected. Yet, I spent several hours at the Post Office this past Monday speaking to them and we still have no assurance that the mail will be restored.”
“When [Ms. Story] spoke about not receiving mail, Tony said he knew about it, and that it’s being corrected,” Mudd continued. “Yet, I spent several hours at the Post Office this past Monday speaking to them and we still have no assurance that the mail will be restored. I did learn that a NYCHA representative told the Post Office that the tenants were moved—and the building is being demolished.”
Up to Its Neck in Scandal
The supposedly cash-strapped New York City Housing Authority is an agency up to its neck in scandal. Last month, 70 NYCHA employees were convicted of bribery, fraud or extortion as part of what federal prosecutors called the largest single-day corruption sweep in the Department of Justice’s history.
Gothamist quoted Ricky Patel, special agent in charge of the Homeland Security Investigations New York Field Office, saying, “Today’s guilty plea is the latest step in exposing a scheme that exploited NYCHA’s operations, shortchanged its communities, and siphoned trust and resources from NYCHA residents — New Yorkers who deserve better.”
This week, The City reported a “first-of-its-kind investigation” into NYCHA in which it found “more than 14,200 housing code violations in RAD developments since January 2021.”
According to the outlet, that included “nearly 400 cases where HPD [Department of Housing Preservation and Development] was forced to hire contractors to address the most serious violations with repairs that, under normal circumstances, should have been performed by the agent NYCHA designated to manage the property.”
Despite all that, state housing officials on Thursday backed NYCHA’s bid to demolish and replace the FEC building at 401-4019 W. 19th Street with a 12-story tower containing 217 units at an expected cost of $1.2 million per apartment.
Public Housing Committee Chair Chris Banks [D-42nd District] has been a vocal opponent of the RAD/PACT program calling it a “scam” that’s used to “profit off the poor.”
NO DEMOLITION: FEC tenants are holding informational pickets on the west side campuses to let their public housing neighbors know that—despite what NYCHA claims—they do not have to sign relocation papers and leave their homes.
Moving public housing residents out of Section 9 and into Section 8 he says, has been a “complete disaster” and a “living hell” for Brooklyn tenants living at four NYCHA buildings located his district.
“I've had many discussions with my colleague, Erik Bottcher, and in all due respect—he just doesn't get it,” Council Member Banks told Work-Bites on Thursday.
The Brooklyn rep also said he would like to see Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani now take some decisive action against NYCHA’s ongoing push to privatize public housing.
“He has reiterated to me that he's against privatization of public housing—so that's a that's a good thing to hear,” Council Member Banks said. “But now I want to see the administration put its full muscle to stop what the current administration is steamrolling ahead with complete disregard to the residents.”
Work-Bites has made repeated attempts to talk to Assembly Member Simone about what happened between him and the Chelsea Addition tenants at last weekend’s West Side Tenants Conference. But those efforts have all been unsuccessful. A spokesperson for the legislator reached by phone on Thursday morning refused to comment and said the legislator would not be available to for an interview.
Assembly Member Simone, along with Council Member Bottcher and other elected officials, recently signed onto two letters sent to NYCHA’s Chief Executive Officer and New York City Department of Social Services Commissioner Molly Park urging a pause in legal actions against FEC tenants, as well as a reevaluation of the proposed demolition’s timeline.
“While we support the goals of the RAD/PACT Fulton Elliott-Chelsea Redevelopment project,” the letter to NYCHA stated, “to ensure the long-term success of this project it is essential that the relocation and conversion process proceed in a manner that protects tenants, upholds their rights, and avoids unnecessary harm.”
Assembly Member Simone struck a decidedly different tone, however, during his formal address to last weekend’s 20th Annual West Side Tenants Conference, in which he highlighed “fat cats” and “greedy developers.”
“We need to look at the construction that we did when we built the amazing Penn South—Mitchell-Lama homes where a grandmother can live in one building and the granddaughter can live two buildings down,” he told the audience. “That is the American, and New York way. And now, they are under attack—not just by greedy developers and business interests in this state—but from the White House itself. They don’t believe in a housing-first model—they believe in a punish-everyone-first model. They’re okay to feed their fat cats and give them the breaks, but they could care less about us.”
New York State Attorney General Letitia James and State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, as well as Assembly Members, Linda Rosenthal, Micah Lasher, and Alex Bores, also spoke at the event sponsored by the West Side Neighborhood Alliance and Housing Conservation Coordinators [HCC].
Assembly Member Simone’s use of the word “we” during Yu Story’s attempted exchange with him was especially disturbing to hear, Mudd added.
“I imagined Tony and his developer friends toasting the destruction of their homes,” he said. “Ms. Story was asking Tony for help—and he was not interested in listening.”