City pressures 'worst landlords'

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This winter was especially hard for Louis Perez, his wife and two children inside their apartment at 58 Marble Hill Ave.

With no heat through December and January, he resorted to dressing his 3- and 7-year-old children in “extra jackets, extra everything” to protect them from frigid temperatures.

In the meantime, the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) sued landlord Emanuel Pollak to provide steady heat and hot water to all of the tenants at his five-story, 50-unit building. 

The case is still proceeding in court, but HPD’s intervention seems to have done the trick. Mr. Perez reported the heat came back about two months ago.

“Now we are happy,” he said on a recent afternoon. “The house feels good.”

A lawyer for Mr. Pollack did not answer phone and e-mail messages requesting comment. The building at 58 Marble Hill Ave. is one of 20 properties within the boundaries of Community Board 8 that made it onto Public Advocate Letitia James’ “Worst Landlords Watchlist” near the end of last year. The list was primarily based on the HPD’s database of violations for problems ranging from vermin infestations to lack of heat.

Recent months have seen seven of the local properties get off the list, although 58 Marble Hill Ave. was not among them. Three Riverdale addresses previously on the “Worst Landlords Watchlist” have been removed, with the landlady at one property saying she never should have been targeted in the first place.

“Thank God. I’m like, the nightmare is done,” said Dena Fellner of 533-535 W. 232 St., where she explained that most of the violations were called in by a disgruntled tenant who has since been evicted.

worst landlords, 58 Marble Hill Ave, , Letitia James, Shant Shahrigian
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