New York Times

Built by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. in the late 1940s to serve black tenants who could not gain admission to Peter Cooper Village/Stuyvesant Town, also built by Met Life, the 1,288-unit Riverton was bought for $135 million in 2005 by developer Stellar Management. Stellar refinanced the property a year later with a $225-million first mortgage and a $25-million loan, intending to convert more than half the rent-controlled units to market-rate rents.

However, the pace of conversion was slower than expected, reportedly reaching only 10% of the rent-controlled units by the summer of 2008, and Riverton's ownership defaulted on the debt in early 2009. Following the default, special servicer CWCapital filed for foreclosure and receivership in February '09, according to Fitch ratings.

Braun's order comes a little more than a week after the joint venture that owns Stuy-Town complex gave creditors the keys to the 11,227-unit complex. Like Riverton Houses, Stuy-Town was bought at the market's peak with the idea of converting rent-controlled apartments to market rates, a process which similarly proceeded at a slower pace than anticipated. The JV bought Stuy-Town from Met Life for $5.4 billion; Fitch puts its worth at about $1.8 billion today.