June 3, 2025 • 44 mins
In this episode Avi Garelick, of the Northern Manhattan Community Land Trust joins Octavio and Led to discuss how the NMCLT is helping tenants become owners of the buildings their landlords are neglecting.
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Led Black (00:00):
Avi, what are some of the goals of the
(00:01):
Northern Manhattan CLT? What areyou guys looking to accomplish?
Avi Garelick (00:03):
We wanna get tenants to own their own
property and to put it intotheir trust. That's what it
comes down to most of all. Wewanna keep people in their homes
and keep the landlords off theirback.
Octavio Blanco (00:15):
Excited today to have Avi Garilich. He is the
treasurer for the NorthernManhattan Community Land Trust.
Now if you're like us, you'reprobably asking yourself, like,
what is a community land trust?So we're here, and we're gonna
break it down for you. Welcometo Uptown Voices.
From Harlem to The Heights tothe Northern tip of Inwood,
(00:36):
we're here to celebrate ourpeople and together seek
solutions for the difficultissues we're all confronting as
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(00:57):
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(01:18):
vww.Livin'Americana.com. That'sLivin' without a g. So, Avi,
first of all, let me tell me alittle bit about yourself and
about what your work is here, inNorthern Manhattan.
Avi Garelick (01:34):
Sure. Well, first of all, you guys, thank you so
much for having me on. It's ahuge honor to be on Uptown
Voices. I'm really glad you'redoing this podcast. Yeah.
So, as for me, you know, I'm along time Washington Heights
resident. I I mean, it dependshow you define it, but, I I got
here in 2010. I've been involvedin community work of various
(01:57):
kinds, in the Jewish communitydoing education and community
building. Then lately, in thepast decade or so, politics and
community work, I was drawn tothe the work of the Northern
Manhattan Not For Sale Coalitionstarting in about 2015, '20 '16.
Because I you basically I I hadkind of a a personal feeling
(02:18):
that I wanted to fight backagainst gentrification.
You know, I was doing all thisstuff with this growing Jewish
community in the WashingtonHeights area, and I was aware
that, you know, that sort ofthing has an impact as sort of
the, you know, there's only somuch space in the neighborhood.
There can be tension betweensome of the other folks. So, you
(02:41):
know, that made me upset. Iwanted to sort of look at things
in a different way and be, apositive contributor to building
bridges and community change. SoI got involved there.
And the main project of NorthernManhattan Not For Sale, for
folks who don't know, is we werefighting this predatory rezoning
of Inwood for a few years. Itwas a knockdown, drag on fight
(03:05):
with the established interest inthe city. It's a very eye
opening process for me. And oneof the things that happened with
us is we realized, you know, wewere we're part of this
resistance to these predatory upzoning. We, like so many people
in the city, saw what happenedin Williamsburg, Greenpoint,
whatever, other neighborhoodswhere they've been rezoning
(03:27):
during the Bloomberg era.
That was what made it possibleto have all of this, like, slips
upscale development while peoplewere not getting their building
needs met. And so we're afraidof that happening in Inwood. But
as we continued the fight, werealized that we needed a
message beyond, no. Thank you.We don't want any changes.
Right. Right?
Octavio Blanco (03:45):
In Williamsburg, it was very easy to just tell
people to move out and knockdown the building and put
something back up. But butUptown, it's different. And, it
sounds like what the CommunityLand Trust is is is is ready to
do needs to do is is make surethat tenants are organized. Is
that right?
Avi Garelick (04:02):
Yeah. 10 tenant organizing is the central part
of our vision, and we need somuch more.
Led Black (04:08):
Avi, I got a question for you because, I don't even
know what a land trust is reallylike. Octavia gave me a bunch of
homework. I'm studying. Whatlet's start from there. What is
a community land trust?
Avi Garelick (04:17):
Yeah. So a community land trust very simply
is a is a legal sort ofinstitution that makes it
possible for the community toown its own land. What you do
with the community land trust isbasically you have a nonprofit
organization with representativemembership, right? So you create
(04:39):
a kind of democracy for theorganization, so it's not just
controlled by donors orwhatever. And then that
organization owns the landbeneath all different kinds of
types of development, whetherit's housing, outdoor space,
whatever you got.
So the CLT, as we call them,provides the community control
(05:01):
and the security, right? Becausein every deed, we write
everything that's required tomake it for the benefit of the
community. If it's housing,it'll have standards for how
affordable. If it's outdoorspace, we'll have standards for
access, etcetera, etcetera.Those that you can't break that.
But then also, you can have thebuilding itself owned by the
(05:23):
tenants. So then the tenantsthemselves who are closest to
the issues in their building andknow each other, they can govern
the basic issues in theirbuilding. But then they can look
to the CLT to protect them frombigger issues and to help with
issues that are really likescale problems. So like you're
(05:45):
not going to have to worry aboutlike paying for a big capital
improvement like a boiler or aroof all by yourself. If you're
part of a larger CLT, you canrely on the on the collectivity.
You know what I mean?
Octavio Blanco (06:00):
I guess one of the problems in Upper Manhattan
is that a lot of these buildingsare run by landlords that aren't
really doing their part to toupkeep their buildings. Right?
Avi Garelick (06:10):
You know, back in 2019, tenants in New York City
had this huge victory. Theypassed a bunch of new
legislation that made it muchharder for landlords to push you
out if you're in a rentstabilized building. Washington
Heights in Inwood is the mostdensely rent stabilized area in
New York because we have somany, you know, six story, five
(06:33):
story larger buildings. And thatwas a huge success for us. It
made it much, much harder to bedisplaced.
But the flip side is thatlandlords responded basically by
saying, Well, if we can't raiseyour rents, if we can't double
the rents, etcetera, we're justnot gonna invest in the building
anymore. And so people areexperiencing all across uptown,
(06:54):
worse and worse conditions. Yousee more, you see all kinds of
problems with sanitation androdents. Obviously, the rents
are out of control. Landlordsall have their part to play in
that because they just have aneye on the bank.
They're looking at the bottomline. And if they can't raise
the rents, they're gonna try tokeep their profit margins
constant by decreasing cost.That's simple, rational interest
(07:16):
for the landlord. So we need anew model of ownership that can
actually provide safe housingthat's cheap and that people can
control themselves in their owninterest.
Octavio Blanco (07:29):
I have I have so many questions. When was this
land trust, the NorthernManhattan CLT, when was it
formed?
Avi Garelick (07:38):
We started having meetings in 2017. It was like a
working group of the NorthernManhattan Not For Sale
Coalition. Then after the losson the rezoning, we basically
took a hiatus. The nonprofitdates back to like 2021, and
we've really been organizingearnestly starting in the
beginning of 'twenty four. We'vehad intense gentrifying
(08:00):
pressures for the entire twentyfirst century.
And currently, as we'vediscussed, landlords are
divesting from their ownproperties in a way that it's
not like we're not really quiteat the bad old days yet, but
like you saw what happened. Youknow, if you know New York
history in the 70s and 80s,landlords just wholesale would
(08:20):
abandon their property,sometimes set it on fire on the
way out to collect insurancemoney, which actually is kind of
the origin of the firstgeneration of this kind of work.
Community developmentcorporations and some of the
earliest community land trust inthe city of somewhere around
that time. Because tenantslooked around and they said,
Well, we should take mattersinto our own hands. Our
landlords are completelyabsentee.
(08:41):
We don't want to leave, right?Nos Quelladamus, like they said
in The Bronx, we're going tostay and make it work. And so
that's a matter of filling inwhere the landlords are
abandoning the scene. Today,things are a little different
and it's harder to get propertyinto community hands because
landlords don't want to abandonthe scene but they also don't
(09:02):
want to do their jobs. But yeah,now you see So there's an
established community land truston the Lower East Side called
Cooper Square, which if folkswant to If you're in the
neighborhood, you go check itout, just walk along East
Fourth, East Third, and you cansee it's a beautiful street.
It's got great retail and wellmaintained housing. That's all
(09:24):
because of that CLT. Now, inthis new generation, you've got
East Harlem. They're off to agood start. East New York is
buying properties.
So it's an exciting time to be apart of almost a movement of
small organizations across thecity.
Led Black (09:38):
And Avi, what are some of the goals of the Neumann
CLT? What are you guys lookingto accomplish?
Avi Garelick (09:42):
Well, a couple of things. Most important, we want
to get tenants to own their ownproperty and to put it into the
trust. That's what it comes downto most of all. Some CLTs are
gonna be more focused on newdevelopment because there are
good opportunities for newdevelopment. What we're looking
at is we have a really solidbuilding stock, you know, some
(10:06):
deterioration across the board,but good buildings that if, you
know, you have cooperativemanagement focused on
maintaining them well, they'llsurvive for a long time.
So we wanna keep people in theirhomes and keep the landlords off
their back.
Octavio Blanco (10:20):
Could you explain a little bit why now
might be a good time for peopleto start to get organized?
Avi Garelick (10:25):
Yeah. That's a great question. So first of all
and and excuse me if this islike if this comes off as too
wonky. But the overall picture,as I mentioned, landlords are
decreasing costs and trying to,you know, maintain their profit
margins as they can no longerraise rent so high. The other
big issue for landlords, if theybought before 2019, is a lot of
(10:48):
them are what's calledoverleveraged.
Overleveraged means they tookout big loans from banks or
whatever with the idea in mindthat they would start to double
and triple the rent roll ontheir building. So they said to
the banks, look, we have a bunchof poor tenants, you know, they
think they deserve to live inWashington Heights, but we know
better, you know, so we're gonnaarrest them until they get out
(11:09):
of here. And then we're gonnadouble the rent on that unit.
We're gonna do that over andover again so that by the time
the mortgage is due, 02/1930, '2thousand '30 '5, you'll be
getting these big payments fromus. And the bank said, That
sounds good.
It's been working so far in NewYork for the past twenty years.
Here's a big loan. Now they'restruggling to make the payments
(11:30):
on these big loans that theyshould never have taken out.
That's just a structural issue,which is that you'll see
landlords trying to unload theirbuildings. Now, the tenant
movement wants to be there tocatch them when they fall.
I mean, the buildings, you know.They want get in there and buy
if the landlords are selling. Sothat's why there's this
legislation which has beendiscussed at the state level and
(11:53):
the city level, TOPA and COPA.So TOPA is the Tenant
Opportunity to Purchase Act.COPA is the Community
Opportunity to Purchase Act.
And it's very simple. It's afirst right of refusal when the
landlord wants to sell. So thelandlord puts the property on
the market. TOPA would requirethem to inform the tenants and
to give them the first chance tobuy at whatever is the market
(12:19):
rate. So obviously that law byitself is not a magic spell
because we still need to gettogether the money to buy those
buildings.
I mean, whatever it is, it'sgoing be pretty expensive. It's
New York City. So we want to getthe laws across and we want to
get funding from state, city.I'm not gonna mention federal.
(12:41):
You know, we can't talk aboutfederal.
But
Octavio Blanco (12:45):
yeah. It's good to organize now because these
overleveraged landlords,basically, they owe the the
banks a lot of money becausethey thought they were gonna be
able to, you know, raise therent three, four times what the
rent was, and then they're notable to. So then they're now
they're just ignoring the thebuilding, but they still owe all
(13:05):
this money. So they might wannasell the building, but these
laws would say, okay, you whohave ignored your tenants and
are now trying to sell thebuilding, you need to give the
tenants the first opportunity tobuy the building. And so tenants
need to get organized so theycan prove, hey, we're organized
enough to take care of thebuilding and community land
(13:29):
trusts need to be involvedbecause they gotta be able to
say, oh, and we're able to tapinto these monies so that we can
help the tenants to purchasetheir buildings, which you may I
I would imagine that afterignoring these buildings and
letting them become so run down,they've probably decreased in
value.
Avi Garelick (13:47):
Well, yeah, what we need, like you said so well,
is for is for tenants to get inthe game, to start talking to
their neighbors about theirissues and start mobilizing to
fix them because, number one,that's good no matter what. I
mean, you got to get to go toknow your neighbors and work
together to get your basic needsmet. It's always more effective
when you work together as ateam. And not just in dealing
(14:10):
with your landlord, but alsodealing with whatever's coming,
you know? I mean, we talk aboutall kinds of stuff that, you
know, a few years ago we hadCOVID and people needed to do
mutual aid to help each otherget groceries and so on without
getting sick.
Today you've got ice all up inpeople's business and you need
community networks just to letthem know, let people know
they're coming and all of that.So tenant organizing is like,
(14:33):
it's good for your You can useit. It's good
Led Black (14:36):
for it's good for a lot of reasons. Yeah. Right.
Right. Yeah.
I I remember someone sayingcommunity is the answer. Right?
So that's definitely true. Butwhat are some of the tactics
that that the landlords aredoing to push people out?
Because in my building, forexample, I'm one of the few
playing market value, but I knowthey warehouse a lot of
apartments.
The the apartment right next tomine, there's no one in there.
Hasn't been there forever. It'sa bunch of apartments like that.
(14:57):
Can you tell us aboutwarehousing and some of the
other tactics they're using?
Avi Garelick (15:00):
Yeah. We don't know how many units across the
city are being warehoused likethat. There's just there's
actually we don't know. Andthere's there's a huge range of
estimates depending on who youare. Wow.
The city tries to do anestimate, the state has a
separate estimate, the landlordlobby puts out their estimate,
(15:22):
and they're just basically,there's no reliable way to know
on a large scale how many thereare. But anecdotally, there are
a ton. And it's sad, you know? Imean, because first of all,
you're getting deprived ofneighbors, right? Instead of
neighbors, you have nothing,best case scenario.
Problems can fester in thebuilding, you know,
structurally. If people aren'tthere living there, keep track
(15:43):
of it. You get, God forbid,rodents, birds inside the
building using it as a home,right? So, it's a big you know,
not to mention that it restrictsavailable housing. At a time
where there's a huge housingcrisis, people can't find
apartments.
So that's a disaster. Landlordsare trying to use that as a
political chip, which is why youcan't believe their numbers
(16:04):
either. They want to say, Wecan't renovate these apartments
and still make ends meet withthe rents that we're required to
charge. So they're leaving themempty even though in the short
term it costs them money, theycould be making rent because
they are trying to pressure thegovernment to let them raise the
rents again as high as theycould before. So that's part of
(16:26):
So basically, there's a lot ofbuildings around the city where
once people move out, they justdon't fill them up again.
It makes it harder to organize.That's one thing.
Led Black (16:36):
Besides warehousing, what else are they? What are the
taxes are they doing? BecauseI'll give you an example. My mom
has a rent stabilized apartment.She's been there since '79.
And a few years back, they saidshe hadn't got paid her rent in
like six years, which isnonsense. My mom is old school.
She got the money order. And onemonth out of the few years they
were questioning, my dad was hehad just didn't have access to
(16:56):
the money order. He he he didn'thave a copy.
So they made us still pay thatone month. Right? Which is
nonsense. But what other tacticsare they doing, like, to to try
to push us out?
Avi Garelick (17:06):
Well, that's awful. And it sounds to me
typical, because for them, itseems like the best case
scenario I mean, you know, evenif they even if they can't get
you on everything, they'll getyou on one little thing and
they'll make $600 12 hundreddollars whatever. Yeah, and they
could push you out. I mean,they're also super difficult
about succession rights. Sofolks know about that, right?
(17:30):
If you know, if your mom or youruncle or your downtown tenants
have a rent stabilizedapartment, you know, you as
their family members should beable to take it over if they
want to move or they've got astock out for bid. They make
that, I mean, it is like, youknow, legal as long as you
establish residency while theystill live there. Landlords will
(17:51):
be a huge pain. Know what Imean? Even if they don't have a
good plan to get that unit outof rent stabilization, they
still just hate having multiplegenerations of a family live in
a place because it gives youmore power to have stability.
And that, as a class, they wanttenants to be discombobulated
and on their own. And they don'twant us to be able to form
(18:13):
stable communities.
Octavio Blanco (18:14):
I think lead you know, you've well, you and I
have talked about about the drugissue in in Upper Manhattan and
the fact that the only places inThe United States where there's
safe injection sites is up here.And is that partly how does that
affect the the housing stock andthe neighborhood and the prices
(18:34):
for for buildings? And how doesthat impact the people that are
already living in in those inthose?
Avi Garelick (18:42):
Yeah, well, that's an interesting question. I mean,
I would say off the bat, firstof all, I fully support OnPoint
and Washington Heights, and I'ma huge fan of everything they're
doing. I think it's lifesavingwork, and I know people on staff
there and I know people who haveused their services. And it's an
(19:03):
incredible thing, like I said,life saving and life changing
for a lot of people. That said,I I think we're on the back end
of a really serious lifethreatening crisis.
The opium crisis, I don't knowoff the top of my head, but it's
one of the top causes of deathnationwide. It has been for a
while. So that's a threat,whether you're housed or
unhoused, people vulnerable tothat, to drug addiction. You
(19:25):
know, I mean, it's an issue thatcan, it can be a curveball issue
for tenant organizing. I was in,before COVID, I was in a
building on Wadsworth that hadan active tenant association and
we faced a problem with a guyactually whose grandmother had a
lease in the building.
(19:47):
We had He was basically causingtrouble. You know, he would let
his friends in and they would beusing out in the hallway and on
the stairs because hisgrandmother didn't want that
happening in the apartment. Youknow, it was disrupted, it was
(20:07):
messy and, you know, familieswith kids were like freaked out.
So we came together, we had avery raucous meeting on the
subject, where the managementwas actually present. Someone
invited government to come.
And so management heard aboutit. They said, basically they
(20:28):
said, well, you can help us byasking us to evict the
grandmother. If you guys allsign onto this letter, then we
can sue her and that'll help usget her out. And some people
thought that was a fine ideasince she couldn't control her
grandson. But a lot of peoplesaid, well, there's no way we're
gonna, you know, she's a goodwoman.
(20:50):
I mean, she's a little bit,she's having a little bit of
family trouble and she's gettingold, but, know, we don't want to
see her out on the street. Thatwas boisterous. You know, people
went back and forth because alot of people just saw that as
the most obvious solution.There's a lot of resistance. And
eventually, we basically endedup calling his uncle Sam.
They brought him to like Queensor something to diffuse the
(21:11):
situation. So, you know, that'sthe sort of thing that coming
together and building communityand looking for ways to keep
everybody housed and safe andfeeling good in their homes,
that's something that onlytenant organizing can do.
Led Black (21:26):
Yeah. And I do want to say one thing, Abi, like, you
know, respectfully, I don't knowif I agree with you about our
own point, right? I mean, Ithink they have their place.
Right? But there's only two safeinjection sites in the whole
country, and they're both inuptown.
Right? Washington Heights and ElBarrio. But that's a that's a
that's a, I think, a much largertopic that we tackle further.
But I I I just wanted just ifyou could just, you know, like,
(21:47):
bear with me. I almost feel likethat it's it feels like it's a
it's a Trojan horse forgentrification.
Right? It feels like it'shelping to push us out. Right?
Because and it also, I thinkthat it's helping to make people
sell drugs. Right?
Because heroin people wouldn'tbuy heroin, they're not gonna go
far. They're gonna do it wherethey cop it. So it's you're
actually forcing these youngpeople to sell drugs to to these
(22:08):
people. So I don't know if maybeI'm wrong. I'm willing open
minded about it, but I don'tknow if I share the same kind of
viewpoint about them as you
Avi Garelick (22:15):
I think we've got a Yeah, maybe you could do an
episode on the subject. You canbring someone from On Point on,
and you could do a debate or aroundtable or something. You
know, the opiate crisis and thefentanyl crisis is stuff that
has global impact, and, youknow, is destroying Mexico, not
(22:36):
to mention neighborhoods in TheUS. And it's a little bit beyond
what we can settle here.
Led Black (22:41):
For sure. No, for sure. No, but I just want to say
maybe it was something I'mmissing, right, that you knew
that I was missing about it.Because it it feels like ever
since Unpointe came Uptown,Uptown's just gotten worse.
Right?
I grew up here. I was I livedhere through the crack era.
Right? I was a kid during thecrack era. And I see things here
that I've never seen before.
Right? And again, it just feelsin certain ways that they've
(23:02):
become a magnet for just drawingdrug addicts appear. Right? But
anyway, like I said, this isanother topic. I want to ask
you, and this is kind of whatyou were talking about, you
know, the Northern Manhattan,not for sale.
Like, when you look at Inwoodnow, you know, being that you
fought the good fight. Right?But now what you were fighting
against has happened to somedegree. Right? What what are
(23:22):
your feelings on when when yougo to Inwood and you see what it
has become?
What what do you think about
Avi Garelick (23:27):
Look, mean, Inwood is staying strong as well as it
can. And as we discussed, youknow, in the year after we lost
the rezoning fight, we won thebig statewide fight for for the
tenant laws. So that changed thelandscape. We were very afraid
of the rezoning creatingpressures on the building values
(23:48):
in the rest of Inwood andexacerbating already really
intense displacement pressures.Now those pressures are not as
intense as we expected.
Instead, again, we've got theproblem of deterioration and
divestment. Disinvestment, maybewe should call it. So that's
different. And, you know, as faras the effects of the upzoning,
I mean, it's really too early totell. But you go to I mean,
(24:08):
okay, if you take the subway to207 Street on the one line right
now and just look you stand on aplatform and look across towards
in the direction of the Bronx,so those new buildings, they
just are finishing.
They just finished those up.They're going to be leasing
those out over the next year orso. So those are big. I mean,
are big. What kind of changes tothe neighborhood those will
(24:31):
affect?
We don't know yet. And that'snot even that's not even getting
into what, you know, the therest of the neighborhood.
Octavio Blanco (24:40):
Right. Because those are actually there's still
plans for many more buildings tobe going up in that previously
industrial area. Right? I mean,they're still Indeed. They're
not done they're not done withthe building.
So it's still too early to tellthat how Inwood is gonna be
impacted by those large largebuildings because they're
common. I know for sure if theydo get filled up, it's gonna be
(25:02):
a lot harder to find a seat atthe, at the, at the, at 207
Street than it was when I livedthere ten years ago.
Led Black (25:09):
Or parking or parking. Right? Cause parking is
going be even worse. Yeah.
Octavio Blanco (25:13):
Yeah. I mean, there's some
Avi Garelick (25:14):
good stuff to- And we don't know what kind of
cultural changes to expecteither.
Led Black (25:23):
You wanna tell them a little about donations and how
they could help the show?
Octavio Blanco (25:26):
Absolutely. We can't do this without
contributions from our viewers.You're gonna see a QR code in
the of the screen here, whichyou can scan, and that's gonna
take you to a contribution sitewhere you can make a
contribution towards UptownVoices. It's gonna be helpful
for us to be able to elevate ourproduction. We have dreams and
aspirations of doing live shows.
(25:48):
We have dreams and aspirationsof being on location at our
various, cultural institutions,and we can't do that without
without contributions fromviewers and listeners like you.
And we also can't do thatwithout our sponsors. In this
this pilot season, this firstepisode of our pilot season, we
are lucky to have a greatsponsor, one eighty one Cabrini.
(26:10):
It's our neighborhood bistro.Both Led and I are just steps
away from one eighty oneCabrini, and and we love it.
One eighty one Cabrini islocated right there on that
corner of 181 and Cabrini juststeps away.
Led Black (26:22):
1 And Cabrini.
Octavio Blanco (26:23):
Just steps away from the bridge. So, yeah, I
love it. Led, you you you and Iwere there the other night.
Led Black (26:29):
Yeah. Yeah. And we also met there for the first
time. You and I, the first timewe met, we had we had, like,
lunch there. And it's it's mylocal bar now, like, since I
live you and I both live, like,right around.
This is my local bar. I spend alot of time there. James Lee,
the owner, is just an incrediblerestaurant tour. Right? I think
he he he's a great guy.
He's super funny, but, like, thefood is on point. There's some
(26:51):
place also where I watch theNick games. Right? Please hit up
when when they want Cabrini isit is really one of my favorite
spots. But, yeah, when they wantCabrini, sangria is amazing.
Everything in it oh, and youhave to try the the coconut
bread pudding. They got coconut.They got chocolate, and now they
got banana, but the coconut,outstanding. So like I said,
they really it attention todetail for me is a great
(27:13):
neighborhood joint. Thank thankyou to James and and and and one
Cabrini for sponsoring thisepisode.
And, you know, if you wannasponsor, holler at my boy. You
know what I mean? Let's make ithappen. You know what I mean?
Octavio Blanco (27:23):
I just wanna say one thing. We're gonna have a
code, a redemption code at theend of this episode, which you
can bring to +1 81 for a specialtreat.
Led Black (27:31):
But, yeah, without further ado, though, let's get
to it. Let's do it.
Octavio Blanco (27:34):
So can I go back a little bit? We don't know how
many of these apartments arebeing warehoused. Does somebody
collecting those statistics? Cantenants reach out to your
organization or some otherorganization and say, Hey, if
you're collecting numbers, Ilive at this address, and I can
tell you that this apartment isempty and this one's empty and
this one's empty so that you cancontinue building a list.
Avi Garelick (27:56):
Yeah. We'll take it. I mean, it's that's
something that's been on theback burner for me for a long
time. I thought what we reallyone of the things we really need
is a community driven datacollection process. And if
anybody who's listening wants towants to take the lead on that,
I mean, I think it would bereally cool to just go up and
down your block.
Just go up and down to all thebuildings in your block. Right.
You knock on every door. It's alot of you know, fine. It's just
(28:18):
one block.
So, it's a lot of doors but justone block. You know, a couple
hundred. Split it up with someother folks. You just wanna
know, is there someone livinghere? Then you ask also, okay,
you're living here, what aboutthe other, you know, I knocked
on the door across the hall.
Didn't get an answer there. Doyou know if there's someone
living there? Oh, yeah. Ofcourse. Yeah.
So and so, you know, they justwork nights. Try again, you
(28:39):
know, in the morning or whateveror yeah, they live there. That
one, I don't know. Haven't seenanyone coming in and out or I
know for sure, you know, thatone's been vacant since 2022. I
think you could make a list.
If we get momentum on that, Ithink it would be a really cool
project And it could, you know,I mean, we could prove something
cool about about a neighborhooddata collection. Mean, go ahead.
Led Black (29:01):
You know what I find interesting, Avi? Like, you're
doing, like, good work, right?And and important work, but it's
hard work. Right? It's not easywork.
Right? It's work that that thatyou have to actually convince
people that the work needs to bedone. Right? Like, so how do you
how do you stay motivated? Whathow what keeps you going?
Right?
Avi Garelick (29:19):
I mean, this is gonna be kind of sappy, I guess,
but honestly, I just I'm doingthe work with my friends. I
mean, you know, Paul, Paloma,and Chris were the core of the
CLT project, and we've beenworking together now for many,
many years. And we built deepconnections. So I feel
accountable to them. Have a goodtime whenever we're working on
stuff together.
You know, we have meetings, youknow, we cook, we get together.
(29:42):
It feels good. I think it's it'sreally important. It's really
important to make to make ithappen that way, to build
community and friendships and tocook for each other, to help
each other with kids or whateverit is. And that's also what I
would say, you know, to anyonewho feels afraid of tenant
organizing, or feels like it'llbe a slog or too much work, or
there's too much risk, or, youknow, you feel like you can live
with with whatever situationyou're in, you know, at minimum,
(30:04):
just the minimum tenantassociation is you just get to
know each other a little bitmore.
You know, there's so many waysthat we're being drawn into our
own little cocoons in twentyfirst century society. We got
our little, you know, ourdemonic screams and we can just
stay inside our bedrooms andignore the world around us. And
it's such a shame, you know,because it's destroying society.
(30:27):
Like, we need to stick together.So it could just be just as much
as knocking on the next door andsaying, you know, I've been
having this leak.
Have you been having somethinglike that? Also, what's your
name? You know, where you comefrom? And, you know, do you want
some dinner? And if it doesn'tget, you know, you don't need to
be having twice a month meetingsand going to housing court,
(30:49):
know, tying yourself to yourlandlord's office door in order
to be in a tenant association.
I mean, just start small and befriendly.
Octavio Blanco (30:56):
And for those who are inspired by the work
that you're doing, because, youknow, I reached out to you, Avi,
because I really think that theidea of the Northern Manhattan
Community Land Trust isimportant work. And I would
personally also like toparticipate somehow. So I was
just gonna put it out there.Like I would love to work with
you on some project, some way,and somehow this is one way that
(31:18):
I can work with you to get theword out about what you're
doing, with me and Led on our,Uptown Voices podcast. How do
how can other people becomeinvolved with you?
I mean, yeah, there's I thinkwhat you said is really good
that you don't have to be doing,like, monthly meetings with your
neighbors. It's just a questionof like, just knocking on your
next door neighbor's door andintroducing yourself is a great
(31:40):
start. But what if somebody ismore inspired and wants to wants
to work with you or wants tovolunteer with you? How can, how
can they do it? What are thekinds of people that you're
looking for?
Like what roles are you tryingto fill things like that?
Avi Garelick (31:54):
Awesome. Yeah, thanks. So we are, yeah, we're a
small and mighty organization.And right now the vast majority
of our effort is going intoworking with this one couple of
buildings on 1 SeventiethStreet. We're working with them
intensively, supporting them andtrying to get their buildings
out from under their landlord.
Know, so we're a small group, sothat's like, that's our main
(32:16):
project. In the meanwhile,there's so many other buildings
that are in such similarsituations. So, you know, people
want to get involved, get toknow the community land trust
model. We can train you into it.And you can start knocking on
doors and help us expand theproject.
You can also help us run events.And of course, we take cash
donations. Good too. It helps uswith our operations. And really,
(32:38):
any of your skills are probablygonna be helpful.
And so we have a little contactform on our website,
northernmanhattanclt.org, andyou can email us,
team@northernmanhattanclt.org.We get to know you. We'll try to
find a project. It's like, wehave a new logo as of this year,
thanks to Brenda Gonzalez, who'sa designer. She said, let me
help you out.
(32:58):
We'll get a popping logo. That'sher skill set. That's great.
It's like, oh, somebody if youwant to cook for a tenant
meeting, you love, you love tocook, you got a good black beans
and rice recipe. Let's get youin there.
So, you know, it's like thesky's the limit. We need to be
bringing our skills to communitywork. So get in touch with us
and we'll we'll get you pluggedin.
Led Black (33:21):
That's awesome. And I wanna ask you about the the two
buildings you spoke about atonce. The the landlord was
arrested. Right? Like, does thatgive you right?
I think he was arrested. Right?
Avi Garelick (33:29):
Literally. He literally went to Rikers Island,
folks.
Led Black (33:32):
Wow. Wow. Yeah. He I
Avi Garelick (33:34):
don't know what the plan I don't know what's the
plan So
Led Black (33:39):
but how does that affect what you're doing in
those buildings? Is that good orbad or does it, you know, does
it push the agenda forward ordoes it somehow make it go
backwards?
Avi Garelick (33:48):
Surprisingly, it is not as helpful as you might
think. I mean, it raises theprofile of the buildings, which
is good up to a point. Peopleare interested. You get your
elected officials coming out tothe press conference, which is
good. But we live in America andprivate property is private
property.
(34:12):
The tenants want to own theirown building. The only way to
get that to happen is for him tosell it. So we're still working
through that ticket. The citymight help. The city can sue
him, but it's a very challengingprocess.
In the meanwhile, there arecourt orders for him to fix the
violations. There's slow veryslow progress on all that stuff.
(34:35):
Immediate tension moves on. Youknow? You get somebody else at
the top of the worst landlordlist.
So it's a boost to see him getarrested. But it's like him
spending time in Rikers Islanddoesn't fix the mold in your
bathroom. Right. It might hinderit actually, right? It actually
hinge.
I mean, obviously there's amanagement company and stuff,
(34:55):
and there's a superintendentthat is getting his paycheck
from the management company. Soit doesn't have to come to a
halt while the principal isdoing time. But that's just a
system that we live in. It'slike, well, we have jails, we
got to use those. There's nothere's no magic spell to, make
(35:18):
these buildings that he'sneglected for so long suddenly
lovely places to live where thetenants can feel good about it.
You know, that's a slog.
Octavio Blanco (35:26):
Yeah. And, and then we haven't even touched on,
on what's the issue withcommercial properties and, and
there's so many commercialproperties or blocks or plots of
land that, that are in totaldisrepair. I mean, for God's
sake, Coogan's bar, which waslike a mainstay of the
neighborhood and was somewherewhere everybody would gather,
(35:49):
lost its lease after COVID. Andthere's nobody in there still.
That was how long ago?
Avi Garelick (35:54):
Two years ago.
Led Black (35:56):
2021, I think. Yeah. I think it was 2021.
Octavio Blanco (35:58):
So is there, like, a land trust, idea that
could be applied to things likethat. Like, there's there's a
few places in the neighborhoodwhere where there were people
that were gonna decide weregonna build something, and then
they never did or they halfbuilt it. And they now there's,
like, I think it's on, like, offBroadway. There's, like, a
(36:20):
building that's really just,like, a skeleton of a building,
and it's been that way for,what, like, ten years now.
There's a corner of, 180 ThirdAnd Overlook that was gonna be
this massive building, and it'sand it's and it's just a empty
lot that's you can't even lookinto it.
There's the corner of of 180First And Broadway that used to
(36:43):
be the Coliseum Theater, and nowit's just weeds. So, like, is
there anything that Kennedylevel to address those issues?
Because, I mean, we do havemany, many issues, like, in our
homes, but then we also havethese issues. You know, all
these places could have been,you know, apartment buildings
for for folks to live in.
Avi Garelick (37:02):
Yeah. No kidding. Yeah. There's a lot there. And,
you know, it it all comes downto just the the basic incentive
structure of private landownership.
I mean, I'm sort of beating thedrum on this one, and, maybe I
sound like a crazy radical butlike, listen, you own a lot. You
own this lot on 180 First InBroadway. Let's say you're the
(37:25):
family that's lucky enough tohave this lot. You don't have
any debt on the property, right?Are you paying property taxes?
It's freaking vacant, okay?You're fine there. You can
basically If you build anapartment building now but if
you had waited another sevenyears for the neighborhood to
gentrify, Okay? You could havebuilt an apartment building that
(37:49):
would, like, double your totalnet operating income over the
next two decades. Hello.
You're not gonna build it now.Timing is so important for
development. You want to get themaximum because once you build
it, it's there forever. I mean,it's there for the rest of your
life. Landlords want to be veryjudicious about when they do
(38:11):
their big project.
Now for us, what does that looklike? It looks like overgrown
empty lots that are breedinggrounds for rats that we can't
use for anything. And so thecommunity is suffering while
private landlords buy theirtime. Talking about Coogan's,
mean, got to take on Columbia,Columbia Presbyterian, if we're
(38:33):
taking that issue seriously. Imean, that's right there, the
landlord there, I think.
So they've got some other plans.I mean, they don't want a
neighborhood hot spot. Theywant, I don't know what they
want, I mean, for their doctorsor something. So, you know, I
don't think the Community LandTrust is gonna be able to take
down Columbia Pres necessarily,but I do think, you know, as we
(38:56):
grow and gain momentum, the goalis to be able to take on
properties like that and to beable to work on putting them to
community use, right? And thisis it needs to be a citywide
movement, a national movement,and especially a movement of the
neighborhood to turn the tidetowards community ownership of
land that makes it possible tooverride some of these
(39:19):
antisocial impacts of privatelandlordism.
I thought, you know, that's allwe can that's all we can hope
for.
Led Black (39:25):
So so it seems like Avi, like the government needs
to step in and and and theselandlords. Right? It seems like
they have a sense of to not doanything. So what what can
government do to make thingsbetter?
Avi Garelick (39:36):
Well, you can yeah. The government could put
more pressure on owners ofvacant properties or
underutilized properties. Imean, there is an idea that's
been thrown around for a longtime called the land value tax
that could contribute to acommunity ownership future.
Basically, what you do with theland value taxes, instead of
just taxing the improvements onthe land, which is the basic
(39:57):
property tax that we have, youtax the value itself. This comes
from the ideas of a veryinteresting thinker from earlier
in American history named HenryGeorge.
And he looked around and hesaid, well, so much of the value
of owning a private piece ofproperty actually comes from the
improvements that are kind ofgenerated by society. You know,
(40:19):
it's especially true in an urbancontext. I mean, you know, on a
basic level, you have sewage,you have pavements, street
lighting, electricity, internet,that's all in there because of
public activity. And then you'vealso got, you know, the
intangibles. You've got culture.
You've got local economies. Allthe stuff that makes that makes
(40:40):
properties in a place like NewYork City valuable to have. So
the government could tax thatvalue. Right? Since we created
it in the first place, we couldtax that value.
That would be good income forthe government. Also would
incentivize landlords to use itor lose it. Right. Now it's not
always good. Landlords using itis not always good for could
(41:05):
get, you know, it could, itcould get them moving.
They don't want to build. Maybethey'll sell it off to community
land trust that can makesomething happen with it.
Octavio Blanco (41:14):
I wish we could just solve this, you know, like
just snap our fingers and makeit happen. It's so frustrating
to be in such a greatneighborhood with so many great
people and be confronted with somany of these, you know,
frankly, I mean, I want to saythey're complicated, but also at
the same time, they're alsopretty simple issues. You know,
there's land and needs to beRight. So, I mean, yeah, I wish,
(41:38):
I wish we could just, you know,snap our fingers, but you know,
what I do really like about,what you're doing, Avi, and also
what you do, Led, on a dailybasis and what I'm trying to get
involved with is that you dobuild community, and I've heard
you both say how importantcommunity is. And Upper
Manhattan, Inwood, WashingtonHeights, and Harlem, those are
(41:59):
three iconic communities wherethe people really do stick
together.
They are true neighborhoodswhere people do, you know, you
know, get to know theirneighbors for the most part. And
I hope that that's, that that's,going to be the case going
forward. Led, do you have any,we're not going to solve this
issue and we're not going to,and we're not going to, you
(42:20):
know, understand it fully eitherin this hour that we have
together. And I hope that thisis not going to be the last time
Avi that we get to speak withyou. I hope to have you on more
frequently as we get the podcastgoing because it's a complicated
issue.
So to listeners who might stillbe sort of like foggy about what
the heck we're talking about, Iunderstand. I do I do want to
(42:41):
get, get us get this issue onour table though. And I think
that this format, this place,especially being that we're
local, right, it gives us thetime and space to to talk about
it. Led, I'm sorry if I dronedon, but let go ahead.
Led Black (42:54):
No. You're good. I just wanna say, Avi, like, thank
you for the work you do. Right?Hearing you talk, the way you
talk, and the passion that comesthrough, and I'm really thankful
for that.
Right? It's it's inspiring,right? Sometimes, you know, you
forget why you do things, and Iwant to thank you for that. And
any final words, like, like,Tavy said, this is not the last
time we talked. I think you wereso smart, so brilliant, so
focused, so passionate.
(43:15):
So we definitely could doupdates. But for right now,
anything you want to leave thecommunity with?
Avi Garelick (43:20):
Yeah. Thank you, Octavio. I'm really impressed
that you're putting this podcasttogether, and it's what we need
uptown just to buildconsciousness and to help people
learn about what's going on inthis neighborhood and around the
city. I just gotta go back to myold refrain, man. Knock on the
doors next Knock on yourneighbor's doors.
Just say, Hey, what's up? Wehave this problem. Do you have
(43:42):
that problem? You know, get totalking. That's what you have to
do.
And email us atteam@NorthernManhattanclt.
Octavio Blanco (43:49):
Yeah. Get out of your comfort zone, people. Come
on. Get out. Get out there.
Knock on your neighbors. Youknow, make friends. You know?
That's why we live in New YorkCity. Right?
Avi Garelick (43:57):
That's what it's all about.
Led Black (43:58):
Exactly. Exactly. Avi, thank you so much, brother.
I really appreciate it, andthank you for finding a good
fight, brother.
Avi Garelick (44:03):
Thank you, guys. Be good.
Octavio Blanco (44:09):
Thanks for joining us in episode of Uptown
Voices brought to you by oneeighty one Cabrini, your
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(44:30):
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us a like. Until next time, thishas been Uptown Voices.
Avi, what are some of the goals of the
(00:01):
Northern Manhattan CLT? What areyou guys looking to accomplish?
Avi Garelick (00:03):
We wanna get tenants to own their own
property and to put it intotheir trust. That's what it
comes down to most of all. Wewanna keep people in their homes
and keep the landlords off theirback.
Octavio Blanco (00:15):
Excited today to have Avi Garilich. He is the
treasurer for the NorthernManhattan Community Land Trust.
Now if you're like us, you'reprobably asking yourself, like,
what is a community land trust?So we're here, and we're gonna
break it down for you. Welcometo Uptown Voices.
From Harlem to The Heights tothe Northern tip of Inwood,
(00:36):
we're here to celebrate ourpeople and together seek
solutions for the difficultissues we're all confronting as
neighbors. Regardless of whathood you represent, we share the
same goal, creating the bestcommunity we can, somewhere to
enjoy, where we can build ourlives and raise our children. We
wanna thank one eighty oneCabrini located on the corner of
180 First Street and CabriniBoulevard for its generous
(00:57):
support for this podcast. It'syour neighborhood bistro just
steps away from the North Walkof the GWB. Stay tuned for a
discount code that you canmention to your bartender or
server the next time you visitrestaurant.
We also need financialcontributions from listeners
like you to produce, improve,and expand our content. To
contribute, please scan the QRcode on the screen or visit
(01:18):
vww.Livin'Americana.com. That'sLivin' without a g. So, Avi,
first of all, let me tell me alittle bit about yourself and
about what your work is here, inNorthern Manhattan.
Avi Garelick (01:34):
Sure. Well, first of all, you guys, thank you so
much for having me on. It's ahuge honor to be on Uptown
Voices. I'm really glad you'redoing this podcast. Yeah.
So, as for me, you know, I'm along time Washington Heights
resident. I I mean, it dependshow you define it, but, I I got
here in 2010. I've been involvedin community work of various
(01:57):
kinds, in the Jewish communitydoing education and community
building. Then lately, in thepast decade or so, politics and
community work, I was drawn tothe the work of the Northern
Manhattan Not For Sale Coalitionstarting in about 2015, '20 '16.
Because I you basically I I hadkind of a a personal feeling
(02:18):
that I wanted to fight backagainst gentrification.
You know, I was doing all thisstuff with this growing Jewish
community in the WashingtonHeights area, and I was aware
that, you know, that sort ofthing has an impact as sort of
the, you know, there's only somuch space in the neighborhood.
There can be tension betweensome of the other folks. So, you
(02:41):
know, that made me upset. Iwanted to sort of look at things
in a different way and be, apositive contributor to building
bridges and community change. SoI got involved there.
And the main project of NorthernManhattan Not For Sale, for
folks who don't know, is we werefighting this predatory rezoning
of Inwood for a few years. Itwas a knockdown, drag on fight
(03:05):
with the established interest inthe city. It's a very eye
opening process for me. And oneof the things that happened with
us is we realized, you know, wewere we're part of this
resistance to these predatory upzoning. We, like so many people
in the city, saw what happenedin Williamsburg, Greenpoint,
whatever, other neighborhoodswhere they've been rezoning
(03:27):
during the Bloomberg era.
That was what made it possibleto have all of this, like, slips
upscale development while peoplewere not getting their building
needs met. And so we're afraidof that happening in Inwood. But
as we continued the fight, werealized that we needed a
message beyond, no. Thank you.We don't want any changes.
Right. Right?
Octavio Blanco (03:45):
In Williamsburg, it was very easy to just tell
people to move out and knockdown the building and put
something back up. But butUptown, it's different. And, it
sounds like what the CommunityLand Trust is is is is ready to
do needs to do is is make surethat tenants are organized. Is
that right?
Avi Garelick (04:02):
Yeah. 10 tenant organizing is the central part
of our vision, and we need somuch more.
Led Black (04:08):
Avi, I got a question for you because, I don't even
know what a land trust is reallylike. Octavia gave me a bunch of
homework. I'm studying. Whatlet's start from there. What is
a community land trust?
Avi Garelick (04:17):
Yeah. So a community land trust very simply
is a is a legal sort ofinstitution that makes it
possible for the community toown its own land. What you do
with the community land trust isbasically you have a nonprofit
organization with representativemembership, right? So you create
(04:39):
a kind of democracy for theorganization, so it's not just
controlled by donors orwhatever. And then that
organization owns the landbeneath all different kinds of
types of development, whetherit's housing, outdoor space,
whatever you got.
So the CLT, as we call them,provides the community control
(05:01):
and the security, right? Becausein every deed, we write
everything that's required tomake it for the benefit of the
community. If it's housing,it'll have standards for how
affordable. If it's outdoorspace, we'll have standards for
access, etcetera, etcetera.Those that you can't break that.
But then also, you can have thebuilding itself owned by the
(05:23):
tenants. So then the tenantsthemselves who are closest to
the issues in their building andknow each other, they can govern
the basic issues in theirbuilding. But then they can look
to the CLT to protect them frombigger issues and to help with
issues that are really likescale problems. So like you're
(05:45):
not going to have to worry aboutlike paying for a big capital
improvement like a boiler or aroof all by yourself. If you're
part of a larger CLT, you canrely on the on the collectivity.
You know what I mean?
Octavio Blanco (06:00):
I guess one of the problems in Upper Manhattan
is that a lot of these buildingsare run by landlords that aren't
really doing their part to toupkeep their buildings. Right?
Avi Garelick (06:10):
You know, back in 2019, tenants in New York City
had this huge victory. Theypassed a bunch of new
legislation that made it muchharder for landlords to push you
out if you're in a rentstabilized building. Washington
Heights in Inwood is the mostdensely rent stabilized area in
New York because we have somany, you know, six story, five
(06:33):
story larger buildings. And thatwas a huge success for us. It
made it much, much harder to bedisplaced.
But the flip side is thatlandlords responded basically by
saying, Well, if we can't raiseyour rents, if we can't double
the rents, etcetera, we're justnot gonna invest in the building
anymore. And so people areexperiencing all across uptown,
(06:54):
worse and worse conditions. Yousee more, you see all kinds of
problems with sanitation androdents. Obviously, the rents
are out of control. Landlordsall have their part to play in
that because they just have aneye on the bank.
They're looking at the bottomline. And if they can't raise
the rents, they're gonna try tokeep their profit margins
constant by decreasing cost.That's simple, rational interest
(07:16):
for the landlord. So we need anew model of ownership that can
actually provide safe housingthat's cheap and that people can
control themselves in their owninterest.
Octavio Blanco (07:29):
I have I have so many questions. When was this
land trust, the NorthernManhattan CLT, when was it
formed?
Avi Garelick (07:38):
We started having meetings in 2017. It was like a
working group of the NorthernManhattan Not For Sale
Coalition. Then after the losson the rezoning, we basically
took a hiatus. The nonprofitdates back to like 2021, and
we've really been organizingearnestly starting in the
beginning of 'twenty four. We'vehad intense gentrifying
(08:00):
pressures for the entire twentyfirst century.
And currently, as we'vediscussed, landlords are
divesting from their ownproperties in a way that it's
not like we're not really quiteat the bad old days yet, but
like you saw what happened. Youknow, if you know New York
history in the 70s and 80s,landlords just wholesale would
(08:20):
abandon their property,sometimes set it on fire on the
way out to collect insurancemoney, which actually is kind of
the origin of the firstgeneration of this kind of work.
Community developmentcorporations and some of the
earliest community land trust inthe city of somewhere around
that time. Because tenantslooked around and they said,
Well, we should take mattersinto our own hands. Our
landlords are completelyabsentee.
(08:41):
We don't want to leave, right?Nos Quelladamus, like they said
in The Bronx, we're going tostay and make it work. And so
that's a matter of filling inwhere the landlords are
abandoning the scene. Today,things are a little different
and it's harder to get propertyinto community hands because
landlords don't want to abandonthe scene but they also don't
(09:02):
want to do their jobs. But yeah,now you see So there's an
established community land truston the Lower East Side called
Cooper Square, which if folkswant to If you're in the
neighborhood, you go check itout, just walk along East
Fourth, East Third, and you cansee it's a beautiful street.
It's got great retail and wellmaintained housing. That's all
(09:24):
because of that CLT. Now, inthis new generation, you've got
East Harlem. They're off to agood start. East New York is
buying properties.
So it's an exciting time to be apart of almost a movement of
small organizations across thecity.
Led Black (09:38):
And Avi, what are some of the goals of the Neumann
CLT? What are you guys lookingto accomplish?
Avi Garelick (09:42):
Well, a couple of things. Most important, we want
to get tenants to own their ownproperty and to put it into the
trust. That's what it comes downto most of all. Some CLTs are
gonna be more focused on newdevelopment because there are
good opportunities for newdevelopment. What we're looking
at is we have a really solidbuilding stock, you know, some
(10:06):
deterioration across the board,but good buildings that if, you
know, you have cooperativemanagement focused on
maintaining them well, they'llsurvive for a long time.
So we wanna keep people in theirhomes and keep the landlords off
their back.
Octavio Blanco (10:20):
Could you explain a little bit why now
might be a good time for peopleto start to get organized?
Avi Garelick (10:25):
Yeah. That's a great question. So first of all
and and excuse me if this islike if this comes off as too
wonky. But the overall picture,as I mentioned, landlords are
decreasing costs and trying to,you know, maintain their profit
margins as they can no longerraise rent so high. The other
big issue for landlords, if theybought before 2019, is a lot of
(10:48):
them are what's calledoverleveraged.
Overleveraged means they tookout big loans from banks or
whatever with the idea in mindthat they would start to double
and triple the rent roll ontheir building. So they said to
the banks, look, we have a bunchof poor tenants, you know, they
think they deserve to live inWashington Heights, but we know
better, you know, so we're gonnaarrest them until they get out
(11:09):
of here. And then we're gonnadouble the rent on that unit.
We're gonna do that over andover again so that by the time
the mortgage is due, 02/1930, '2thousand '30 '5, you'll be
getting these big payments fromus. And the bank said, That
sounds good.
It's been working so far in NewYork for the past twenty years.
Here's a big loan. Now they'restruggling to make the payments
(11:30):
on these big loans that theyshould never have taken out.
That's just a structural issue,which is that you'll see
landlords trying to unload theirbuildings. Now, the tenant
movement wants to be there tocatch them when they fall.
I mean, the buildings, you know.They want get in there and buy
if the landlords are selling. Sothat's why there's this
legislation which has beendiscussed at the state level and
(11:53):
the city level, TOPA and COPA.So TOPA is the Tenant
Opportunity to Purchase Act.COPA is the Community
Opportunity to Purchase Act.
And it's very simple. It's afirst right of refusal when the
landlord wants to sell. So thelandlord puts the property on
the market. TOPA would requirethem to inform the tenants and
to give them the first chance tobuy at whatever is the market
(12:19):
rate. So obviously that law byitself is not a magic spell
because we still need to gettogether the money to buy those
buildings.
I mean, whatever it is, it'sgoing be pretty expensive. It's
New York City. So we want to getthe laws across and we want to
get funding from state, city.I'm not gonna mention federal.
(12:41):
You know, we can't talk aboutfederal.
But
Octavio Blanco (12:45):
yeah. It's good to organize now because these
overleveraged landlords,basically, they owe the the
banks a lot of money becausethey thought they were gonna be
able to, you know, raise therent three, four times what the
rent was, and then they're notable to. So then they're now
they're just ignoring the thebuilding, but they still owe all
(13:05):
this money. So they might wannasell the building, but these
laws would say, okay, you whohave ignored your tenants and
are now trying to sell thebuilding, you need to give the
tenants the first opportunity tobuy the building. And so tenants
need to get organized so theycan prove, hey, we're organized
enough to take care of thebuilding and community land
(13:29):
trusts need to be involvedbecause they gotta be able to
say, oh, and we're able to tapinto these monies so that we can
help the tenants to purchasetheir buildings, which you may I
I would imagine that afterignoring these buildings and
letting them become so run down,they've probably decreased in
value.
Avi Garelick (13:47):
Well, yeah, what we need, like you said so well,
is for is for tenants to get inthe game, to start talking to
their neighbors about theirissues and start mobilizing to
fix them because, number one,that's good no matter what. I
mean, you got to get to go toknow your neighbors and work
together to get your basic needsmet. It's always more effective
when you work together as ateam. And not just in dealing
(14:10):
with your landlord, but alsodealing with whatever's coming,
you know? I mean, we talk aboutall kinds of stuff that, you
know, a few years ago we hadCOVID and people needed to do
mutual aid to help each otherget groceries and so on without
getting sick.
Today you've got ice all up inpeople's business and you need
community networks just to letthem know, let people know
they're coming and all of that.So tenant organizing is like,
(14:33):
it's good for your You can useit. It's good
Led Black (14:36):
for it's good for a lot of reasons. Yeah. Right.
Right. Yeah.
I I remember someone sayingcommunity is the answer. Right?
So that's definitely true. Butwhat are some of the tactics
that that the landlords aredoing to push people out?
Because in my building, forexample, I'm one of the few
playing market value, but I knowthey warehouse a lot of
apartments.
The the apartment right next tomine, there's no one in there.
Hasn't been there forever. It'sa bunch of apartments like that.
(14:57):
Can you tell us aboutwarehousing and some of the
other tactics they're using?
Avi Garelick (15:00):
Yeah. We don't know how many units across the
city are being warehoused likethat. There's just there's
actually we don't know. Andthere's there's a huge range of
estimates depending on who youare. Wow.
The city tries to do anestimate, the state has a
separate estimate, the landlordlobby puts out their estimate,
(15:22):
and they're just basically,there's no reliable way to know
on a large scale how many thereare. But anecdotally, there are
a ton. And it's sad, you know? Imean, because first of all,
you're getting deprived ofneighbors, right? Instead of
neighbors, you have nothing,best case scenario.
Problems can fester in thebuilding, you know,
structurally. If people aren'tthere living there, keep track
(15:43):
of it. You get, God forbid,rodents, birds inside the
building using it as a home,right? So, it's a big you know,
not to mention that it restrictsavailable housing. At a time
where there's a huge housingcrisis, people can't find
apartments.
So that's a disaster. Landlordsare trying to use that as a
political chip, which is why youcan't believe their numbers
(16:04):
either. They want to say, Wecan't renovate these apartments
and still make ends meet withthe rents that we're required to
charge. So they're leaving themempty even though in the short
term it costs them money, theycould be making rent because
they are trying to pressure thegovernment to let them raise the
rents again as high as theycould before. So that's part of
(16:26):
So basically, there's a lot ofbuildings around the city where
once people move out, they justdon't fill them up again.
It makes it harder to organize.That's one thing.
Led Black (16:36):
Besides warehousing, what else are they? What are the
taxes are they doing? BecauseI'll give you an example. My mom
has a rent stabilized apartment.She's been there since '79.
And a few years back, they saidshe hadn't got paid her rent in
like six years, which isnonsense. My mom is old school.
She got the money order. And onemonth out of the few years they
were questioning, my dad was hehad just didn't have access to
(16:56):
the money order. He he he didn'thave a copy.
So they made us still pay thatone month. Right? Which is
nonsense. But what other tacticsare they doing, like, to to try
to push us out?
Avi Garelick (17:06):
Well, that's awful. And it sounds to me
typical, because for them, itseems like the best case
scenario I mean, you know, evenif they even if they can't get
you on everything, they'll getyou on one little thing and
they'll make $600 12 hundreddollars whatever. Yeah, and they
could push you out. I mean,they're also super difficult
about succession rights. Sofolks know about that, right?
(17:30):
If you know, if your mom or youruncle or your downtown tenants
have a rent stabilizedapartment, you know, you as
their family members should beable to take it over if they
want to move or they've got astock out for bid. They make
that, I mean, it is like, youknow, legal as long as you
establish residency while theystill live there. Landlords will
(17:51):
be a huge pain. Know what Imean? Even if they don't have a
good plan to get that unit outof rent stabilization, they
still just hate having multiplegenerations of a family live in
a place because it gives youmore power to have stability.
And that, as a class, they wanttenants to be discombobulated
and on their own. And they don'twant us to be able to form
(18:13):
stable communities.
Octavio Blanco (18:14):
I think lead you know, you've well, you and I
have talked about about the drugissue in in Upper Manhattan and
the fact that the only places inThe United States where there's
safe injection sites is up here.And is that partly how does that
affect the the housing stock andthe neighborhood and the prices
(18:34):
for for buildings? And how doesthat impact the people that are
already living in in those inthose?
Avi Garelick (18:42):
Yeah, well, that's an interesting question. I mean,
I would say off the bat, firstof all, I fully support OnPoint
and Washington Heights, and I'ma huge fan of everything they're
doing. I think it's lifesavingwork, and I know people on staff
there and I know people who haveused their services. And it's an
(19:03):
incredible thing, like I said,life saving and life changing
for a lot of people. That said,I I think we're on the back end
of a really serious lifethreatening crisis.
The opium crisis, I don't knowoff the top of my head, but it's
one of the top causes of deathnationwide. It has been for a
while. So that's a threat,whether you're housed or
unhoused, people vulnerable tothat, to drug addiction. You
(19:25):
know, I mean, it's an issue thatcan, it can be a curveball issue
for tenant organizing. I was in,before COVID, I was in a
building on Wadsworth that hadan active tenant association and
we faced a problem with a guyactually whose grandmother had a
lease in the building.
(19:47):
We had He was basically causingtrouble. You know, he would let
his friends in and they would beusing out in the hallway and on
the stairs because hisgrandmother didn't want that
happening in the apartment. Youknow, it was disrupted, it was
(20:07):
messy and, you know, familieswith kids were like freaked out.
So we came together, we had avery raucous meeting on the
subject, where the managementwas actually present. Someone
invited government to come.
And so management heard aboutit. They said, basically they
(20:28):
said, well, you can help us byasking us to evict the
grandmother. If you guys allsign onto this letter, then we
can sue her and that'll help usget her out. And some people
thought that was a fine ideasince she couldn't control her
grandson. But a lot of peoplesaid, well, there's no way we're
gonna, you know, she's a goodwoman.
(20:50):
I mean, she's a little bit,she's having a little bit of
family trouble and she's gettingold, but, know, we don't want to
see her out on the street. Thatwas boisterous. You know, people
went back and forth because alot of people just saw that as
the most obvious solution.There's a lot of resistance. And
eventually, we basically endedup calling his uncle Sam.
They brought him to like Queensor something to diffuse the
(21:11):
situation. So, you know, that'sthe sort of thing that coming
together and building communityand looking for ways to keep
everybody housed and safe andfeeling good in their homes,
that's something that onlytenant organizing can do.
Led Black (21:26):
Yeah. And I do want to say one thing, Abi, like, you
know, respectfully, I don't knowif I agree with you about our
own point, right? I mean, Ithink they have their place.
Right? But there's only two safeinjection sites in the whole
country, and they're both inuptown.
Right? Washington Heights and ElBarrio. But that's a that's a
that's a, I think, a much largertopic that we tackle further.
But I I I just wanted just ifyou could just, you know, like,
(21:47):
bear with me. I almost feel likethat it's it feels like it's a
it's a Trojan horse forgentrification.
Right? It feels like it'shelping to push us out. Right?
Because and it also, I thinkthat it's helping to make people
sell drugs. Right?
Because heroin people wouldn'tbuy heroin, they're not gonna go
far. They're gonna do it wherethey cop it. So it's you're
actually forcing these youngpeople to sell drugs to to these
(22:08):
people. So I don't know if maybeI'm wrong. I'm willing open
minded about it, but I don'tknow if I share the same kind of
viewpoint about them as you
Avi Garelick (22:15):
I think we've got a Yeah, maybe you could do an
episode on the subject. You canbring someone from On Point on,
and you could do a debate or aroundtable or something. You
know, the opiate crisis and thefentanyl crisis is stuff that
has global impact, and, youknow, is destroying Mexico, not
(22:36):
to mention neighborhoods in TheUS. And it's a little bit beyond
what we can settle here.
Led Black (22:41):
For sure. No, for sure. No, but I just want to say
maybe it was something I'mmissing, right, that you knew
that I was missing about it.Because it it feels like ever
since Unpointe came Uptown,Uptown's just gotten worse.
Right?
I grew up here. I was I livedhere through the crack era.
Right? I was a kid during thecrack era. And I see things here
that I've never seen before.
Right? And again, it just feelsin certain ways that they've
(23:02):
become a magnet for just drawingdrug addicts appear. Right? But
anyway, like I said, this isanother topic. I want to ask
you, and this is kind of whatyou were talking about, you
know, the Northern Manhattan,not for sale.
Like, when you look at Inwoodnow, you know, being that you
fought the good fight. Right?But now what you were fighting
against has happened to somedegree. Right? What what are
(23:22):
your feelings on when when yougo to Inwood and you see what it
has become?
What what do you think about
Avi Garelick (23:27):
Look, mean, Inwood is staying strong as well as it
can. And as we discussed, youknow, in the year after we lost
the rezoning fight, we won thebig statewide fight for for the
tenant laws. So that changed thelandscape. We were very afraid
of the rezoning creatingpressures on the building values
(23:48):
in the rest of Inwood andexacerbating already really
intense displacement pressures.Now those pressures are not as
intense as we expected.
Instead, again, we've got theproblem of deterioration and
divestment. Disinvestment, maybewe should call it. So that's
different. And, you know, as faras the effects of the upzoning,
I mean, it's really too early totell. But you go to I mean,
(24:08):
okay, if you take the subway to207 Street on the one line right
now and just look you stand on aplatform and look across towards
in the direction of the Bronx,so those new buildings, they
just are finishing.
They just finished those up.They're going to be leasing
those out over the next year orso. So those are big. I mean,
are big. What kind of changes tothe neighborhood those will
(24:31):
affect?
We don't know yet. And that'snot even that's not even getting
into what, you know, the therest of the neighborhood.
Octavio Blanco (24:40):
Right. Because those are actually there's still
plans for many more buildings tobe going up in that previously
industrial area. Right? I mean,they're still Indeed. They're
not done they're not done withthe building.
So it's still too early to tellthat how Inwood is gonna be
impacted by those large largebuildings because they're
common. I know for sure if theydo get filled up, it's gonna be
(25:02):
a lot harder to find a seat atthe, at the, at the, at 207
Street than it was when I livedthere ten years ago.
Led Black (25:09):
Or parking or parking. Right? Cause parking is
going be even worse. Yeah.
Octavio Blanco (25:13):
Yeah. I mean, there's some
Avi Garelick (25:14):
good stuff to- And we don't know what kind of
cultural changes to expecteither.
Led Black (25:23):
You wanna tell them a little about donations and how
they could help the show?
Octavio Blanco (25:26):
Absolutely. We can't do this without
contributions from our viewers.You're gonna see a QR code in
the of the screen here, whichyou can scan, and that's gonna
take you to a contribution sitewhere you can make a
contribution towards UptownVoices. It's gonna be helpful
for us to be able to elevate ourproduction. We have dreams and
aspirations of doing live shows.
(25:48):
We have dreams and aspirationsof being on location at our
various, cultural institutions,and we can't do that without
without contributions fromviewers and listeners like you.
And we also can't do thatwithout our sponsors. In this
this pilot season, this firstepisode of our pilot season, we
are lucky to have a greatsponsor, one eighty one Cabrini.
(26:10):
It's our neighborhood bistro.Both Led and I are just steps
away from one eighty oneCabrini, and and we love it.
One eighty one Cabrini islocated right there on that
corner of 181 and Cabrini juststeps away.
Led Black (26:22):
1 And Cabrini.
Octavio Blanco (26:23):
Just steps away from the bridge. So, yeah, I
love it. Led, you you you and Iwere there the other night.
Led Black (26:29):
Yeah. Yeah. And we also met there for the first
time. You and I, the first timewe met, we had we had, like,
lunch there. And it's it's mylocal bar now, like, since I
live you and I both live, like,right around.
This is my local bar. I spend alot of time there. James Lee,
the owner, is just an incrediblerestaurant tour. Right? I think
he he he's a great guy.
He's super funny, but, like, thefood is on point. There's some
(26:51):
place also where I watch theNick games. Right? Please hit up
when when they want Cabrini isit is really one of my favorite
spots. But, yeah, when they wantCabrini, sangria is amazing.
Everything in it oh, and youhave to try the the coconut
bread pudding. They got coconut.They got chocolate, and now they
got banana, but the coconut,outstanding. So like I said,
they really it attention todetail for me is a great
(27:13):
neighborhood joint. Thank thankyou to James and and and and one
Cabrini for sponsoring thisepisode.
And, you know, if you wannasponsor, holler at my boy. You
know what I mean? Let's make ithappen. You know what I mean?
Octavio Blanco (27:23):
I just wanna say one thing. We're gonna have a
code, a redemption code at theend of this episode, which you
can bring to +1 81 for a specialtreat.
Led Black (27:31):
But, yeah, without further ado, though, let's get
to it. Let's do it.
Octavio Blanco (27:34):
So can I go back a little bit? We don't know how
many of these apartments arebeing warehoused. Does somebody
collecting those statistics? Cantenants reach out to your
organization or some otherorganization and say, Hey, if
you're collecting numbers, Ilive at this address, and I can
tell you that this apartment isempty and this one's empty and
this one's empty so that you cancontinue building a list.
Avi Garelick (27:56):
Yeah. We'll take it. I mean, it's that's
something that's been on theback burner for me for a long
time. I thought what we reallyone of the things we really need
is a community driven datacollection process. And if
anybody who's listening wants towants to take the lead on that,
I mean, I think it would bereally cool to just go up and
down your block.
Just go up and down to all thebuildings in your block. Right.
You knock on every door. It's alot of you know, fine. It's just
(28:18):
one block.
So, it's a lot of doors but justone block. You know, a couple
hundred. Split it up with someother folks. You just wanna
know, is there someone livinghere? Then you ask also, okay,
you're living here, what aboutthe other, you know, I knocked
on the door across the hall.
Didn't get an answer there. Doyou know if there's someone
living there? Oh, yeah. Ofcourse. Yeah.
So and so, you know, they justwork nights. Try again, you
(28:39):
know, in the morning or whateveror yeah, they live there. That
one, I don't know. Haven't seenanyone coming in and out or I
know for sure, you know, thatone's been vacant since 2022. I
think you could make a list.
If we get momentum on that, Ithink it would be a really cool
project And it could, you know,I mean, we could prove something
cool about about a neighborhooddata collection. Mean, go ahead.
Led Black (29:01):
You know what I find interesting, Avi? Like, you're
doing, like, good work, right?And and important work, but it's
hard work. Right? It's not easywork.
Right? It's work that that thatyou have to actually convince
people that the work needs to bedone. Right? Like, so how do you
how do you stay motivated? Whathow what keeps you going?
Right?
Avi Garelick (29:19):
I mean, this is gonna be kind of sappy, I guess,
but honestly, I just I'm doingthe work with my friends. I
mean, you know, Paul, Paloma,and Chris were the core of the
CLT project, and we've beenworking together now for many,
many years. And we built deepconnections. So I feel
accountable to them. Have a goodtime whenever we're working on
stuff together.
You know, we have meetings, youknow, we cook, we get together.
(29:42):
It feels good. I think it's it'sreally important. It's really
important to make to make ithappen that way, to build
community and friendships and tocook for each other, to help
each other with kids or whateverit is. And that's also what I
would say, you know, to anyonewho feels afraid of tenant
organizing, or feels like it'llbe a slog or too much work, or
there's too much risk, or, youknow, you feel like you can live
with with whatever situationyou're in, you know, at minimum,
(30:04):
just the minimum tenantassociation is you just get to
know each other a little bitmore.
You know, there's so many waysthat we're being drawn into our
own little cocoons in twentyfirst century society. We got
our little, you know, ourdemonic screams and we can just
stay inside our bedrooms andignore the world around us. And
it's such a shame, you know,because it's destroying society.
(30:27):
Like, we need to stick together.So it could just be just as much
as knocking on the next door andsaying, you know, I've been
having this leak.
Have you been having somethinglike that? Also, what's your
name? You know, where you comefrom? And, you know, do you want
some dinner? And if it doesn'tget, you know, you don't need to
be having twice a month meetingsand going to housing court,
(30:49):
know, tying yourself to yourlandlord's office door in order
to be in a tenant association.
I mean, just start small and befriendly.
Octavio Blanco (30:56):
And for those who are inspired by the work
that you're doing, because, youknow, I reached out to you, Avi,
because I really think that theidea of the Northern Manhattan
Community Land Trust isimportant work. And I would
personally also like toparticipate somehow. So I was
just gonna put it out there.Like I would love to work with
you on some project, some way,and somehow this is one way that
(31:18):
I can work with you to get theword out about what you're
doing, with me and Led on our,Uptown Voices podcast. How do
how can other people becomeinvolved with you?
I mean, yeah, there's I thinkwhat you said is really good
that you don't have to be doing,like, monthly meetings with your
neighbors. It's just a questionof like, just knocking on your
next door neighbor's door andintroducing yourself is a great
(31:40):
start. But what if somebody ismore inspired and wants to wants
to work with you or wants tovolunteer with you? How can, how
can they do it? What are thekinds of people that you're
looking for?
Like what roles are you tryingto fill things like that?
Avi Garelick (31:54):
Awesome. Yeah, thanks. So we are, yeah, we're a
small and mighty organization.And right now the vast majority
of our effort is going intoworking with this one couple of
buildings on 1 SeventiethStreet. We're working with them
intensively, supporting them andtrying to get their buildings
out from under their landlord.
Know, so we're a small group, sothat's like, that's our main
(32:16):
project. In the meanwhile,there's so many other buildings
that are in such similarsituations. So, you know, people
want to get involved, get toknow the community land trust
model. We can train you into it.And you can start knocking on
doors and help us expand theproject.
You can also help us run events.And of course, we take cash
donations. Good too. It helps uswith our operations. And really,
(32:38):
any of your skills are probablygonna be helpful.
And so we have a little contactform on our website,
northernmanhattanclt.org, andyou can email us,
team@northernmanhattanclt.org.We get to know you. We'll try to
find a project. It's like, wehave a new logo as of this year,
thanks to Brenda Gonzalez, who'sa designer. She said, let me
help you out.
(32:58):
We'll get a popping logo. That'sher skill set. That's great.
It's like, oh, somebody if youwant to cook for a tenant
meeting, you love, you love tocook, you got a good black beans
and rice recipe. Let's get youin there.
So, you know, it's like thesky's the limit. We need to be
bringing our skills to communitywork. So get in touch with us
and we'll we'll get you pluggedin.
Led Black (33:21):
That's awesome. And I wanna ask you about the the two
buildings you spoke about atonce. The the landlord was
arrested. Right? Like, does thatgive you right?
I think he was arrested. Right?
Avi Garelick (33:29):
Literally. He literally went to Rikers Island,
folks.
Led Black (33:32):
Wow. Wow. Yeah. He I
Avi Garelick (33:34):
don't know what the plan I don't know what's the
plan So
Led Black (33:39):
but how does that affect what you're doing in
those buildings? Is that good orbad or does it, you know, does
it push the agenda forward ordoes it somehow make it go
backwards?
Avi Garelick (33:48):
Surprisingly, it is not as helpful as you might
think. I mean, it raises theprofile of the buildings, which
is good up to a point. Peopleare interested. You get your
elected officials coming out tothe press conference, which is
good. But we live in America andprivate property is private
property.
(34:12):
The tenants want to own theirown building. The only way to
get that to happen is for him tosell it. So we're still working
through that ticket. The citymight help. The city can sue
him, but it's a very challengingprocess.
In the meanwhile, there arecourt orders for him to fix the
violations. There's slow veryslow progress on all that stuff.
(34:35):
Immediate tension moves on. Youknow? You get somebody else at
the top of the worst landlordlist.
So it's a boost to see him getarrested. But it's like him
spending time in Rikers Islanddoesn't fix the mold in your
bathroom. Right. It might hinderit actually, right? It actually
hinge.
I mean, obviously there's amanagement company and stuff,
(34:55):
and there's a superintendentthat is getting his paycheck
from the management company. Soit doesn't have to come to a
halt while the principal isdoing time. But that's just a
system that we live in. It'slike, well, we have jails, we
got to use those. There's nothere's no magic spell to, make
(35:18):
these buildings that he'sneglected for so long suddenly
lovely places to live where thetenants can feel good about it.
You know, that's a slog.
Octavio Blanco (35:26):
Yeah. And, and then we haven't even touched on,
on what's the issue withcommercial properties and, and
there's so many commercialproperties or blocks or plots of
land that, that are in totaldisrepair. I mean, for God's
sake, Coogan's bar, which waslike a mainstay of the
neighborhood and was somewherewhere everybody would gather,
(35:49):
lost its lease after COVID. Andthere's nobody in there still.
That was how long ago?
Avi Garelick (35:54):
Two years ago.
Led Black (35:56):
2021, I think. Yeah. I think it was 2021.
Octavio Blanco (35:58):
So is there, like, a land trust, idea that
could be applied to things likethat. Like, there's there's a
few places in the neighborhoodwhere where there were people
that were gonna decide weregonna build something, and then
they never did or they halfbuilt it. And they now there's,
like, I think it's on, like, offBroadway. There's, like, a
(36:20):
building that's really just,like, a skeleton of a building,
and it's been that way for,what, like, ten years now.
There's a corner of, 180 ThirdAnd Overlook that was gonna be
this massive building, and it'sand it's and it's just a empty
lot that's you can't even lookinto it.
There's the corner of of 180First And Broadway that used to
(36:43):
be the Coliseum Theater, and nowit's just weeds. So, like, is
there anything that Kennedylevel to address those issues?
Because, I mean, we do havemany, many issues, like, in our
homes, but then we also havethese issues. You know, all
these places could have been,you know, apartment buildings
for for folks to live in.
Avi Garelick (37:02):
Yeah. No kidding. Yeah. There's a lot there. And,
you know, it it all comes downto just the the basic incentive
structure of private landownership.
I mean, I'm sort of beating thedrum on this one, and, maybe I
sound like a crazy radical butlike, listen, you own a lot. You
own this lot on 180 First InBroadway. Let's say you're the
(37:25):
family that's lucky enough tohave this lot. You don't have
any debt on the property, right?Are you paying property taxes?
It's freaking vacant, okay?You're fine there. You can
basically If you build anapartment building now but if
you had waited another sevenyears for the neighborhood to
gentrify, Okay? You could havebuilt an apartment building that
(37:49):
would, like, double your totalnet operating income over the
next two decades. Hello.
You're not gonna build it now.Timing is so important for
development. You want to get themaximum because once you build
it, it's there forever. I mean,it's there for the rest of your
life. Landlords want to be veryjudicious about when they do
(38:11):
their big project.
Now for us, what does that looklike? It looks like overgrown
empty lots that are breedinggrounds for rats that we can't
use for anything. And so thecommunity is suffering while
private landlords buy theirtime. Talking about Coogan's,
mean, got to take on Columbia,Columbia Presbyterian, if we're
(38:33):
taking that issue seriously. Imean, that's right there, the
landlord there, I think.
So they've got some other plans.I mean, they don't want a
neighborhood hot spot. Theywant, I don't know what they
want, I mean, for their doctorsor something. So, you know, I
don't think the Community LandTrust is gonna be able to take
down Columbia Pres necessarily,but I do think, you know, as we
(38:56):
grow and gain momentum, the goalis to be able to take on
properties like that and to beable to work on putting them to
community use, right? And thisis it needs to be a citywide
movement, a national movement,and especially a movement of the
neighborhood to turn the tidetowards community ownership of
land that makes it possible tooverride some of these
(39:19):
antisocial impacts of privatelandlordism.
I thought, you know, that's allwe can that's all we can hope
for.
Led Black (39:25):
So so it seems like Avi, like the government needs
to step in and and and theselandlords. Right? It seems like
they have a sense of to not doanything. So what what can
government do to make thingsbetter?
Avi Garelick (39:36):
Well, you can yeah. The government could put
more pressure on owners ofvacant properties or
underutilized properties. Imean, there is an idea that's
been thrown around for a longtime called the land value tax
that could contribute to acommunity ownership future.
Basically, what you do with theland value taxes, instead of
just taxing the improvements onthe land, which is the basic
(39:57):
property tax that we have, youtax the value itself. This comes
from the ideas of a veryinteresting thinker from earlier
in American history named HenryGeorge.
And he looked around and hesaid, well, so much of the value
of owning a private piece ofproperty actually comes from the
improvements that are kind ofgenerated by society. You know,
(40:19):
it's especially true in an urbancontext. I mean, you know, on a
basic level, you have sewage,you have pavements, street
lighting, electricity, internet,that's all in there because of
public activity. And then you'vealso got, you know, the
intangibles. You've got culture.
You've got local economies. Allthe stuff that makes that makes
(40:40):
properties in a place like NewYork City valuable to have. So
the government could tax thatvalue. Right? Since we created
it in the first place, we couldtax that value.
That would be good income forthe government. Also would
incentivize landlords to use itor lose it. Right. Now it's not
always good. Landlords using itis not always good for could
(41:05):
get, you know, it could, itcould get them moving.
They don't want to build. Maybethey'll sell it off to community
land trust that can makesomething happen with it.
Octavio Blanco (41:14):
I wish we could just solve this, you know, like
just snap our fingers and makeit happen. It's so frustrating
to be in such a greatneighborhood with so many great
people and be confronted with somany of these, you know,
frankly, I mean, I want to saythey're complicated, but also at
the same time, they're alsopretty simple issues. You know,
there's land and needs to beRight. So, I mean, yeah, I wish,
(41:38):
I wish we could just, you know,snap our fingers, but you know,
what I do really like about,what you're doing, Avi, and also
what you do, Led, on a dailybasis and what I'm trying to get
involved with is that you dobuild community, and I've heard
you both say how importantcommunity is. And Upper
Manhattan, Inwood, WashingtonHeights, and Harlem, those are
(41:59):
three iconic communities wherethe people really do stick
together.
They are true neighborhoodswhere people do, you know, you
know, get to know theirneighbors for the most part. And
I hope that that's, that that's,going to be the case going
forward. Led, do you have any,we're not going to solve this
issue and we're not going to,and we're not going to, you
(42:20):
know, understand it fully eitherin this hour that we have
together. And I hope that thisis not going to be the last time
Avi that we get to speak withyou. I hope to have you on more
frequently as we get the podcastgoing because it's a complicated
issue.
So to listeners who might stillbe sort of like foggy about what
the heck we're talking about, Iunderstand. I do I do want to
(42:41):
get, get us get this issue onour table though. And I think
that this format, this place,especially being that we're
local, right, it gives us thetime and space to to talk about
it. Led, I'm sorry if I dronedon, but let go ahead.
Led Black (42:54):
No. You're good. I just wanna say, Avi, like, thank
you for the work you do. Right?Hearing you talk, the way you
talk, and the passion that comesthrough, and I'm really thankful
for that.
Right? It's it's inspiring,right? Sometimes, you know, you
forget why you do things, and Iwant to thank you for that. And
any final words, like, like,Tavy said, this is not the last
time we talked. I think you wereso smart, so brilliant, so
focused, so passionate.
(43:15):
So we definitely could doupdates. But for right now,
anything you want to leave thecommunity with?
Avi Garelick (43:20):
Yeah. Thank you, Octavio. I'm really impressed
that you're putting this podcasttogether, and it's what we need
uptown just to buildconsciousness and to help people
learn about what's going on inthis neighborhood and around the
city. I just gotta go back to myold refrain, man. Knock on the
doors next Knock on yourneighbor's doors.
Just say, Hey, what's up? Wehave this problem. Do you have
(43:42):
that problem? You know, get totalking. That's what you have to
do.
And email us atteam@NorthernManhattanclt.
Octavio Blanco (43:49):
Yeah. Get out of your comfort zone, people. Come
on. Get out. Get out there.
Knock on your neighbors. Youknow, make friends. You know?
That's why we live in New YorkCity. Right?
Avi Garelick (43:57):
That's what it's all about.
Led Black (43:58):
Exactly. Exactly. Avi, thank you so much, brother.
I really appreciate it, andthank you for finding a good
fight, brother.
Avi Garelick (44:03):
Thank you, guys. Be good.
Octavio Blanco (44:09):
Thanks for joining us in episode of Uptown
Voices brought to you by oneeighty one Cabrini, your
neighborhood bistro just stepsaway from the north walk of the
George Washington Bridge. Usethe code Uptown Voices season
one for your discount. And tostay up to date on the latest in
Uptown, you can follow UptownCollective on Instagram,
(44:30):
Facebook, and X. If you'rewatching Uptown Voices on
YouTube, don't forget to smashthe subscribe button and to give
us a like. Until next time, thishas been Uptown Voices.
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