ScumLord

From Lost City:
The article spends its first 16 paragraphs detailing the miserable lives led by people who live at 56 Bedford. Among the plagues: mice, lack of heat, caved-in-ceilings, non-working fireplaces, collapsing bathrooms and illegal construction. It's weird to think of people living in slum-like conditions in the middle of one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the city.

Articles like this make you ask yourself fundamental questions about the way we live, such as: how is a person that allows other people to live under such condition not thrown in jail?; and, can it be that such landlords only care about money, that they have no shred of human decency or concern for the welfare of their fellow beings. I know these are naive questions. But you've still got to wonder. Such behavior just doesn't neatly fall under the usual dodge of "it's just business."

The article also contains the depressing news that the Buildings Department has issued no permit yet for the work needed to shore up the facade.

I believe in free enterprise and property rights - in fact I think property tax ought to be done away with, because with it you don't own your land, but rather, rent it from the state. But with ownership comes stewardship and responsibility. In the world of go-go neocon free trade open borders "capitalism" there is no responsibility, no consequences for the behavior of people like Margaret Streicker Porres. When there is no sense of community - which is the basis of nations and what the EU elite and NAFTA advocates are trying to destroy - then there is no sense of shame for this behavior.

The times article Lost City refers to outlines some of the conditions;

These neighbors — whose building, at 56 Barrow Street, is just down the block from Chumley’s — see the problems that shuttered Chumley’s as another element in a long-simmering fight with their landlord over slow repairs, questionable construction work and troubling living conditions.

Their long list of complaints includes hallways that were without lights for several weeks last summer, fireplaces that can no longer be used and apartments where mice are regular visitors.

Nestor Palacios, who lives in a studio apartment at 56 Barrow, said he and his 6-year-old daughter, Isabella, slept in their coats last week because there was no heat. But he said there was another problem when he turned out the lights: The mice came out.

“I have a hard time falling asleep, waiting for them to crawl over me,” he said.

He said that his kitchenette was unusable because of mouse droppings, and that even though he cleaned the countertop and the sink at least once a day, one afternoon last week he found droppings at the edge of the sink.

“I have now been living with it for so long that I know, if I look behind my bed, what I’m going to find,” Mr. Palacios said. “The smell has alerted me.
....
Mr. Palacios’s building, the Chumley’s building and the others that open on a little courtyard off Barrow Street are owned by companies with ties to Margaret Streicker Porres, who controls a number of old buildings in Chelsea and Greenwich Village that the city has designated as landmarks.

Last year, after taking legal action against tenants in some of her other rent-regulated buildings, she moved to evict two tenants at one of those buildings, saying she needed their apartments for her family.

The tenants in that eviction dispute took issue with the idea that she needed their apartments for her brother and sister. They noted at the time that her father, John H. Streicker, is the chairman of a real estate company that manages a $5 billion portfolio that includes 50,000 apartments.

A call to New Castle Realty Services, which manages the Greenwich Village buildings, was transferred to a man who identified himself only as Michael and refused to give his last name or answer questions. A later request for comment that was faxed to New Castle went unanswered.

Wow, sounds like a real upfront organization, hmm? This woman should not only be fined but be going to jail for endangering people's lives.

Of course in Mayor Bloombergs New York, such landlords are rewarded - after all they are the Mayor's friends and fellow cocktail party and 'charity' fund raiser attendees. (these 'charities' are nothing of the kind - they are tax write-offs for lavish entertaining and social status).

the times seems reluctant to mention her name so I will: Margaret Streicker Porres, Scumlord.