What is up with the empty, landmark buildings on the east side of Lenox, between 119th-120th Street? The lower photo is actually the fourth in the group, one more block north, but these grande dames of Lenox are basically shells that won't be around much longer if repairs aren't made. In many of these scenarios, Church's may be involved, since they are not charged property taxes and thus are without a financial burden to renovate or sell. Otherwise, the city usually gets the property owner for not paying the yearly taxes. All four buildings are official, New York City landmarks so the Landmarks Commission can sue the owners if the state of the building gets close to "demolition by neglect," which, by the way, is pretty much what's going on at the moment. Does anyone know anything about these properties? To see an example of the former state of this corner of Lenox, see our previous post: LINK. Photos by Ulysses
Going north from 119 on Lenox (not including the big building on the corner):
ReplyDelete186 Lenox - Purchased in 2001 by Cheryl Y. Johnson. 4 stories with 8 class A apartments (it is not an SRO) and a tax bill of just $3284/year.
188 Lenox - Sister building to 186, boarded up. Purchased in 1993 by Armstrong Altimon. It's a 4 story SRO with 12 class B rooms. It has an annual tax bill of just $1931. It's had a vacate order in place since 1982.
190 Lenox - Purchased in 1985 by 188 Lenox Corp bricked up (top picture right, above). Armstrong Altimon has his name on the notice address, so probably the same owner as 188 Lenox. It's a 5 story SRO with 6 class A apartments and 8 class B rooms. It's annual tax bill is $16,379. Based on the HPD violation reports from 2008 it appears someone may be living (in squalor) in one of the rear units in the building.
192 Lenox - Sister building to 190, boarded up (top picture left, above). Purchased in 1999 by Emmaus Unlimited, LLC. Ilale Gooden of 400 CPW #20V seems to be the person behind the corporation. Lis pendens (pre foreclosure) filed last month by 192 Lenox Funding Associates against 192 Lenox Realty LLC. Given the names and the fact that they're different than the last person to buy the building it's unclear what's happening - but something is. It's a 5 story SRO with one class A apartment and 10 class B rooms. There has been a vacate order in place since 1986. The annual tax bill is $3104 which is nearly half of what it was last year due to the assessed value going from $426K to $62K. That would have taken some work, so someone is actively doing something with this property.
Skipping a few buildings that seem to be doing fine - going north of 120th...
208 Lenox (the building in the lower picture) - Purchased in 2007 for $1.475M by 208 Lenox Avenue Corp. It could just be a matter of bad timing. There are recent building permits to repair things on the building that are dangerous, but no actual renovation. NYC Department of Unsafe Buildings has filed a lis pendens on the building. It's a 5 story SRO with 15 class B rooms. The annual tax bill is $5533.
So no churches are involved in any of these properties. It's just bad or unfortunate owners.
I highly recommend doing research on the buildings you're interested in. PropertyShark.com has an incredible amount of information and is a good starting point. HPD's site (http://167.153.4.71/hpdonline/) is also really useful.
Thank you so much Jay. That's an amazing amount of information! 208 Lenox had a bunch of guys banging away at the front facade this afternoon. They seem to be constructing more scaffolding so maybe something is about to happen. Let's hope these buildings turn around soon since they are in desperate need of repair.
ReplyDelete