Broken elevators, leaking pipes, roach infestations. Unfortunately for a lot of tenants in the Bronx, the conditions inside 2201-2205 Davidson Ave. won’t come as a surprise.
But what happened last week might.
After more than a decade of tenant organizing against the landlord, New York City foreclosed on the 49-unit building and turned it over to a nonprofit developer and private manager specializing in restoration. It’s the first such seizure in seven years after the city suspended a controversial foreclosure program known as Third-Party Transfer, and local leaders say it’s a template for holding landlords accountable in the future.
The two firms now in control, Neighborhood Restore and Lemle and Wolff, plan to renovate the building with city funding and work with tenants on converting their apartments into permanently affordable co-ops, giving renters a path to ownership.
The extreme measure was made possible by the landlord’s eye-popping unpaid bills, along with a loophole in city policy.
As of February, the company listed as the property owner owed the city nearly $28 million in back taxes, emergency repair fees and other penalties, according to finance records. And though the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development stopped taking derelict buildings with major debt and turning them over to Neighborhood Restore in 2019, officials argued that the Davidson Avenue building should be grandfathered in because it was on an earlier list of buildings to seize.
Top city housing officials and the chair of the city council’s housing committee say the situation shows why the city needs a last-resort option to take apartment buildings from bad landlords and are pushing to replace the suspended program. Building tenants who spoke with Gothamist say they’re optimistic about the future after years of inaction.
“Once we have proper management, the building will be a freaking beautiful castle in my opinion,” said Jenel Young, a 28-year-old artist and MTA worker who lives in the unit once leased by her grandmother. “We are going to make this work and we’re going to keep going until things finally fall into place.”
During a visit last year, Young told Gothamist she had spent thousands of dollars to repair a hole in the bathroom ceiling, remove lead paint and hire an exterminator to kill the rats roaming the apartment. Those conditions became common for tenants throughout the building and galvanized years of organizing alongside the group Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition.
The building has more than 600 open violations, including 245 considered “immediately hazardous,” like 10-square-foot patches of mold, hot water outages and busted door locks, according to Department of Housing Preservation and Development records .
“We know this is something that’s been happening in a lot of buildings,” Northwest Bronx Program Coordinator Karen Baez said. “It’s sad the building has to get to this level of neglect in order for the city to say, ‘We need to remove the building from this negligent landlord.’”
The city suspended the Third-Party Transfer program after a 2019 City Council report found it had disproportionately stripped smaller properties from low- and middle-income New Yorkers, nearly half of them owners of low-income co-ops, without compensation.
But City Council Housing Committee Chair Pierina Sanchez, a Democrat whose district includes the Davidson Avenue building, said ending the program removed the ultimate enforcement tool for dealing with negligent landlords who own large apartment buildings.
Last year, Sanchez introduced legislation to revive a version of the program with provisions to protect smaller owners.
“What we’re celebrating this week is momentous,” Sanchez told Gothamist. “But it’s going to be the only one until we have a reform bill passed.”
Kim Darga, the deputy commissioner at Housing Preservation and Development, agreed. She said the building on Davidson Avenue is the “poster child” for reviving a tool that allows the city to take over derelict properties where owners rack up years of unpaid taxes and fees. “ The residents in this building really have suffered for a long time,” Darga said.
Before the foreclosure last week, her agency had not been able to hold the landlord accountable, despite entering the building into enforcement programs that carry hefty fines and bill landlords for emergency repairs. The problem was that the owner didn’t pay.
These tenants have been living in horrible conditions for over a decade.Councilmember Pierina Sanchez
The building has had a murky ownership history, with companies New Day Housing Corp. and Romad Realty listed on property records and court documents, along with landlord David Kornitzer.
Gothamist attempted to contact Kornitzer for his response to the city’s seizure of the property and to ask about the building conditions and unpaid bills. He answered a phone call on Friday afternoon and asked to talk Monday, but he did not respond to a follow-up call and text message. His lawyer did not respond to an email.
In response to a lawsuit from tenants, Kornitzer’s attorney submitted emails into the court record showing Kornitzer’s communication with administrators from Neighborhood Restore. Those records show he was willing to let the city take the building at least as early as last February.
“We have a property that’s been in distress for a while and we would like to look for an organization that can take over this property and restore it,” Kornitzer wrote to the head of Neighborhood Restore in February 2024. “If this is something you [sic] organization does, please let me know when we can have a discussion.”
He blamed unpaid rent for compounding his inability to keep up with repairs, additional court documents show. A February 2025 rent arrears report entered into court records showed tenants owed nearly $3.2 million.
But Sanchez said the problems predate the tenants’ decision to stop paying rent. The residents were withholding their rent money in response to the owner’s neglect, she said.
“They let their property be run into the ground over the period of a decade with no program the city has working to improve conditions,” Sanchez said. “These tenants have been living in horrible conditions for over a decade.”
Neighborhood Restore Executive Director Salvatore D’Avola, whose organization is in control of the building, said he was glad the city intervened “given the years of neglect and suffering from the residents.”
Tenants are now entering a new chapter in their residency, one that could end in them owning their own apartments, but will require them to resume paying rent each month.
Dorothy Joseph, a retired teacher, said she has lived in her third-floor apartment for 32 years and contended with gas leaks, holes in the wall and intruders entering through an unlocked front door. Joseph, 72, said tenants will end their rent strike under responsible management.
“If the place is fixed and people are comfortable, they will pay the rent,” she said. “It’s a good feeling. It’s encouragement.”
Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the name of one of the companies listed on property records for the building at 2201-2205 Davidson Ave.