Socialism

The complex’s residents went on a rent strike during the pandemic, withholding their rent until their landlord, Jason Korn, fixed the significant issues aggravating residents. They knew the road ahead was difficult. They were going against Korn, who had been named New York City’s worst landlord in 2019 and 2020 by the public advocate’s office. Korn’s 55 apartment buildings were cited by the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development with thousands of building code violations each year, accumulating fines in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

At the end of 2024, after more than four years of the rent strike, residents defeated eviction efforts by their new landlords, Gillman Management, who took over the building in 2022. Members of the tenant association and their legal representation used a defense of “rent-impairing violations” to ask for rent deferment for as long as the building continues to have severe breaches of the building conservation code.

A judge on Dec. 13 sided with the renters, finding that repairs in the building were necessary and waiving rental arrears from January 2020 to May 2022, which added up to $250,000. The period coincided with Korn’s tenure as the owner of the building.