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Regional HUD Shows Initiative in Doing the Right Thing as Mayor Calls for DOB Overhaul

NEW YORK CITY-Just as the DOB sees five of its top-ranking employees indicted and arrested, New York's HUD office takes a bold step in protecting tenants in a Harlem property.

By Amy Vaughn | Updated on October 02, 2000

NEW YORK CITY-While news of the latest Department of Buildings scandal was embarrassing the city, the New York-New Jersey office of the Federal government’s Housing and Urban Development came through for Harlem tenants, preventing a notorious property owner from buying another building. The mayor released a public statement announcing the establishment of a task force to conduct a full and thorough investigation of the DOB. At the same time, the residents of Harlem were celebrating their good news and the city was able to herald the actions of one of its government agencies.

The good news is that for the first time in HUD’s history the agency authorized a letter to be written to a property owner who has apparently earned the title “slumlord” and told him he is disqualified from buying a building after having placed the highest bid for it. Baruch Singer was told in no uncertain terms that he couldn’t have 437 Manhattan Ave. in Harlem for the $2.6 million he bid for it or any other figure. HUD, urged by councilman William Perkins of Harlem, did a complete review of Singer’s business practice history.

This unprecedented research of a bidders history of conduct found that Singer had endangered the safety of his tenants and had, in many cases, acted illegally and unethically. Singer did not reply to HUD’s efforts to obtain a rebuttal from him regarding findings, including the death of three tenants in a collapse of a building he owned on West 140th Street five years ago. As news spread of the decision, so did the relief through Harlem.

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