Willi the Landlord

By Roger Paradiso

MANHATTAN PLAZA towers over small brownstones in Hells Kitchen. Photo credit: Robert Rowlett via Wikipedia Attribution ShareAlike 2.5.

According to Village Preservation, “The city is planning to develop the site of the Gansevoort Meat Market north of the Whitney Museum … It will include a 60-story, 600-ft. tall, 600-unit apartment tower of mostly ultra-expensive super-luxury units.”

I thought I’d go back in time and imagine what Willi the Landlord would say about this. Willi is an alias based on a guy I knew who passed away two decades ago. He was a guy with no money, but he had five brownstones on the Upper West Side. He was the “mayor” of his block and, along with many others, helped bring back the Upper West Side.

I met Willi in 1980 when I had my doubts about buying an apartment on West 81st where it was like the Wild West. But Willi pointed me to civilization and the newly built police precinct on West 82nd. He said, “the boys in blue will keep you safe so you can watch the money start pouring into this place.” Then he laughed and offered me a cigar. I passed on the cigar and bought the apartment.

Here’s what I think Willi would say about the project in the Meatpacking District.

What do you think of a 60-story apartment building in the Meatpacking District?
First off, the building is ugly. Second off, it’s too big and ugly and third off it is damn stupid. Use the people’s money to fix the infrastructure for these fat cats on the public’s dough. Roads, sewers, heat, electric, water. You wanna have sidewalk congestion, then build an ugly scraper.

Should people have a right to affordable housing in Manhattan?
Go live where you can afford it. If it’s Queens, Brooklyn, or New Jersey.

How did this happen?
Beam and Koch made that deal with the fat cats to overbuild Manhattan. In return city gets to raise the damn property tax on me. The fat cats pass it on to their commercial tenants. Sweet deal, huh? But it took the city out of bankruptcy in 1974.

How many affordable apartments should we build before we hit the tipping point?
The whole town is gonna fall over and crash in the ocean.

So, you can’t live in Manhattan?
You can live in New York City—if you go tell those NYC city property managers to sell all their property. Tell those other oligarchs like NYU, Columbia, and the big boys to move that real estate they’re sitting on or we gonna tax their butts. Small developers like me will snatch up some, renovate them and you will have more affordable housing in NYC. Decent people with good jobs can afford them.

You mean affordable is for the comfortably affordable incomes of the middle class?
There are people who are not making enough money to live in New York City. I would flood the market with renovated affordable housing and make your head spin. But that won’t cover everyone. You also gotta build shelters and services for homeless people.

So, it is more than supply and demand?
Of course it is. But here on this island there’s a limit to what you can do without upsetting the apple cart. The oligarchs bought generations ago and you can’t go back in time.

So, to summarize, are there a few things we can do?
Yeah, get Manhattan outta your head. Think the whole city, all five boroughs. No more scrapers. Keep low density neighborhoods full of sun and fun. Keep all properties occupied. No hording. Go back to the LaGuardia plan. Rent control, baby. And don’t sell property to foreigners. Sell the empty brownstones and apartments to Willi and his boys. We know what to do with it. And that’s enough of Real Estate 101 by Willi.