By Gus Saltonstall
Two Upper West Side buildings were recently named among the “most distressed” properties in New York City.
This week, the city’s Mayor’s Office, in partnership with the Housing Preservation and Development Department, released an updated list of the 250 most distressed apartment buildings in the five boroughs, which have “the most severe housing code violations citywide.”
The buildings placed on the list are now subject to heightened oversight through the “Alternative Enforcement Program.” The program enables the city to monitor properties through more frequent inspections and issue Orders to Correct, stepping in directly to make repairs when owners fail to do so, and then billing the landlords for the costs.
Here are the two Upper West Side buildings that earned the dubious honor of a spot on the list.
202 West 82nd Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam
The 82nd Street building is a 30-unit residential property that currently has 133 violations, according to HPD.
Those violations include mold sightings, doors with missing hinges, cockroach infestations, and a need to replace carbon monoxide detectors, HPD’s online portal shows. Of the violations at the UWS building, 21 are Class C, which means they are “immediately hazardous.”
926 Amsterdam Avenue, between West 105th and 106th streets
The 926 Amsterdam Avenue property is a smaller residential building with only 10 units, but it has a staggering 436 violations, and 582 complaints over the last two years, according to the HPD portal.
The violations, 90 of which are Class C, include mice infestations, broken radiators, broken pipes connected to the kitchens and bathrooms, and cracked flooring, according to HPD.
A few of the recent complaints made by residents of 926 Amsterdam Avenue relate to a lack of gas and heat, leaky pipes, peeling plaster, and stuck windows, the HPD portal also shows.
In total, the full list of 250 buildings includes more than 7,000 apartments with a total of 54,909 open housing violations, and property owners on the list owe the city around $4.5 million for emergency repairs.
“In our first month in office, we’ve been clear: New York will no longer look the other way while bad landlords put tenants at risk. The Alternative Enforcement Program gives us the power to closely monitor repeat offenders and step in to fix conditions when landlords refuse to do their jobs,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in a news release.
You can check out the full release from the city — HERE.
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Here’s the list
https://www.nyc.gov/assets/hpd/downloads/pdfs/services/list-of-buildings-2026.pdf
I live at 202 West 82nd Street I only pay 1200 for a three bedroom rent controlled unit. I over look the mold and the rats because of the rent.
Just because you are rent=controlled doesn’t mean you have to live in substandard, poorly kept or even dangerous housing with dozens of open violations, including Class C. I hope you are not doing so because you are concerned about being harassed or evicted.
Because as a rent-controlled tenant, you have FAR MORE rights and PROTECTIONS than those in rent-stabilized or “free market” apartments. So you have an even greater right to complain – and to feel safe in doing so.
I live in a 6-story tenement building MUCH older than yours (built in the 19-teens), and the five remaining rent-regulated tenants (including myself) are the most vocal about building issues BECAUSE we know that we are protected from retaliation or eviction simply because we may complain about legitimate issues. Thankfully, while our landlord is not the most helpful in addressing many of our complaints, we have a wonderful super who will often do things that the landlord would not necessarily approve, but which help to either correct various violations or simply make the building more livable.
If you have the physical and mental wherewithal to complain – and maybe get some of your long-time rent-regulated neighbors to do likewise – you MIGHT see some improvement and correction of at least SOME of the violations. But if you sit there and do nothing, you and your fellow tenants have no one but yourselves to blame for the deteriorating condition of your building and apartments – as well as, potentially, your health.
Clearly the resident knows they’re getting a steal. You don’t have to bitch on their behalf.
And no landlord should be expected to lose this much money on a unit. No wonder they don’t do anything. If you were losing thousands every month how excited would you be to throw even more money in the whole? This is an issue with NYC housing mandates – not the landlord. Either the city can buy these units at market rate and lose tons of money, or they should be converted to market rate.
You should not have to. My heart goes out to you
Rats are cute. But isn’t there something you can put on the mold? Open the windows first. In fact, you should probably have an air filter on at all times.
Life is too short to live with mold and rats if it can be avoided. I assume your family is large enough to necessitate 3 bedrooms, despite the negatives?
i lived there for 12 years and i have never heard of a 3br in that building. either ways its gross and awful, and not surprising at at all. and many mentally ill people live there and i was stuck in the elevator for hours.
Apartment 3 in that building 202 W 82nd St is four bedrooms. There are larger apartments in that building
.
apartment 3 does not exist.
I don’t think Mary lives there, the comment is meant to disparage rent regulated apartments, which if Mary lived in NYC Mary would know are overwhelmingly regulated by Rent Stabilization not Rent Control, which ended, for new leases, more than 50 years ago.
there is no apartment 3
This is correct. I owned a 2 family in the Bronx , rent regulated and Sec 8 and had “real” inspections regularly. All items were immediately corrected. That’s just humane!
These buildings are rent controlled/stabilized.
When apartment are rent regulated the landlord either does not have sufficient cash flow to properly maintain the buildings or has no economic incentive to properly maintain them (because no matter how much the landlord spends they can’t recoup in increasing rents and the tenants will not leave regardless of the condition of the building).
These building violations NEVER occur in market rate apartments.
In the meantime the city is wasting valuable time and taxpayer resources investigating these violations and we have hundreds of thousands of units of decrepit housing stock.
This is the inevitable result of “progressive” economic policies.
Unfortunately, our brilliant new mayor and his minions plan to make matters much worse.
Otis,
Individual apts are rent reglated, not buildings.
Also see Anna’s response.
Capitalism is perfect.
“These building violations NEVER occur in market rate apartments.”
Haha, not true. Some landlords are terrible and cheap about repairs no matter what you ‘re paying. They know demand is high and they can find replacement tenants easily with a little cosmetic fix.
Agree! This is NOT a political problem. It is a GREED problem
A greed problem? This landlord is probably losing thousands per month on this unit. You may need to redefine greed. This is a city regulation problem. Rent controlled units should not exist.
You are saying things that are not true.
In a market rate building the landlord needs to keep the building in working order else tenants will leave. Furthermore, the landlord can recoup his maintenance expenses by raising rent.
In a RS building tenants almost never leave because their rent is so cheap. The landlord has no incentive to upkeep the building properly.
Sometimes in life you get what you pay for.
The landlord of building with rent reglulated apts also needs to keep up the building.
Not true. There is a shortage of apts especially those that are affordable. Plus moving costs are high. Tenants who want to leave feel stuck. Landlords know that. They often prefer violations than fixing things. They know someone else will move in if current tenant leaves.
This is an incredibly naive view of landlord behavior. They are humans, and exhibit the full spectrum of human behavior. Some are rational, some are good some are venal, some are petty. Adam Smith’s invisible hand only works (if at all) in the aggregate. Individual humans are going to human.
This is deplorable! I hope Mamdani staff gets on this!
I’m sure Mamdani will get right on this. When he’s not busy doing publicity stunts.
I bet HIS rent-controlled apartment in Queens didn’t have rats or especially MOLD. Humph. Don’t look to him for help
His apartment was rent stabilized, not rent controlled. Big difference.
He didn’t have a rent controlled apartment in Queens.
Rent Stabilized
The Mayor lived in a rent-stabilized one-bedroom apartment in Astoria, Queens, for roughly $2,300 a month since 2019
Yes, and the rent went up.
What is missing from this article is what the consequences are for these violations. Doesn’t seem like they’re significant enough to keep landlords in compliance.
Also missing are the landlords’ names. Are they being protected?
You know the names or you can guess really close in one maybe two tries.
agree when i lived there i called 311 constantly and nothing ever got better. rent stabilized or not, tenants have rights. cops in nyc don’t enforce driving infractions so not sure why they would enforce anything else. one guy in that building threatened to murder me and went to jail. others have schizophrenia. you can’t just move when you can’t afford better. there are so good people in there that deserve better.
It goes on the landlord’s permanent record!
I’m sure there are some terrible landlords but the city has increased Real Estate Taxes ever year and insurance, water and Con Ed have skyrocketed as well so hard for any landlord especially small landlords to recoup their costs. The 2019 rent laws are doing the opposite of what was intended – rents have gone way up and inventory way down.
These are rent controlled buildings. Rent is too low to maintain them. They should also report how many of the residents are behind on their rent or don’t pay. But the buildings should be seized and sold with that many violations.
Buildings are not Rent Sabilized, apts are.
If you are behind on your RS rent, you can readily be evicted.
Says the guy who clearly how no idea how difficult it is to evict tenants in NYC
In practice it takes about a year to evict a rent stabilized tenant for non payment.
That’s a pretty short time when losing a home.
Not evicted “readily.” In the most protracted fashion. Probably not for at the very least two years.
Also your use of “rent controlled” says you don’t live in NYC.
Shameful! Where is the city? The owners should be in jail. So dangerous to the poor residents.
Oh no! How will they survive in their $1200 3 bedroom apartment?
where are name of owners–none in city release either.
uws resident
Can’t help wondering about the NYHA buildings which are responsible for a large percentage of the housing violations. Mamdani hasn’t mentioned them at all.
Government housing? That’s Mamdani’s baby. Surely he will fix…
NYHA, is that like MAHA?
This article is not about ZM.
A government agency should be empowered to step in and fix everything that needs fixing, and the expense charged to the landlord.
I guess that means I shouldn’t worry about my building, which has a mere 34 violations and 24 complaints.
Please know that the Community Board is now talking or legalizing SRO which were made illegal during the 70s . The meeting is on Wednesday For any of us who lived on the UWS at that time it was a horror. Drug dens, Murders, crimes, assaults- we all lived in fear and fought hard to clean up the neighborhood. Please let us not go backwards. There is already a proliferation of new housing for homeless on the UWS and as a taxpayer i would like my money to go to other neighborhoods where more housing can be offered where property and building costs are less .
Classic NIMBY response.
Would be helpful for this article to name the owners of these building. If ownership are corporations, as they probably are, the names of the owners of the corporations would be helpful.
Our Mayor to the rescue! What abysmal landlords and how derelict is the DOB. Shocking to read about these serial law breakers getting away with such behavior for SO LONG! Go get’em, Zohran!