Mayor Zohran Mamdani recently celebrated the transfer of ownership of three long-neglected rent-stabilized buildings in Brooklyn from Rubin Dukler, an owner who’d made frequent appearances on the city’s worst landlord list, to a new landlord named Mark Schwartz.
Schwartz is the mayor of Teaneck, New Jersey, and owns rent-stabilized apartment buildings across the city. Under the landlord swap that was cheered by the mayor and subsidized by the city, Schwartz has pledged to fix up the three Dukler buildings and provide tenants with decent living conditions they had long been denied.
In a Sept. 3 statement, Mamdani called the transfer “a new chapter” for the tenants and promised to work with the new owner “to put these 88 homes on a path toward stability and make clear that every New Yorker deserves a safe, well-maintained and stable place to call home.”…