Wondering how little the landlord who owns Florent's building deserved a present from Santa? This little: He wants $43,000 a month in rent. That's up from, um, $6,018. This is why I've always put landlords at the bottom of the occupational food chain; they cavalierly and greedily fuck around with basic human rights: shelter and livelihood.
Owner Florent Morellet, suing the landlord, but what honestly can he do but forestall the inevitable? According to the Observer acticle, "He doesn’t fault the landlord for trying to cash in. `Until we, as New Yorkers, decide to pass laws to have rent control commercially, landlords should be able to charge what they want,' he said." Or, here's another take on the situation that doesn't give scumlords a pass on ethics: Until we, as New Yorkers, decide to pass laws to have rent control commercially, landlords should make a concerted effort regulate their own business principles according a shared societal creed of fairness.
Sadly, we keep seeing this story...Tribeca recently lost a neighborhood diner, a family business that weathered the aftermath of the WTC attacks. The rent was going to increase $40K per month!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.tribecatrib.com/news/newsoct07/Diner.html
It has been years since I've been out late enough to darken Florent's door -- but I'm sad to see it go.
I'm glad you're documenting all of this; thanks for your blog!