A family in Spanish Harlem received a letter in the mail from the MTA earlier this month with a menacing subject line: “90-Day Residential Vacancy Notice.”
The Diegos — a family of five — have been in the neighborhood for decades. Since 2018, they’ve lived in their building at East 116th Street and Second Avenue, which has an ocean blue facade that’s famous in the area because it includes a mural of fish. The ground floor is shuttered, but was once a popular seafood market.
Now, construction to extend the Second Avenue Subway into their neighborhood means they’ll have to leave for good by Oct. 15. The transit agency is seizing their building via eminent domain to build a new 116th Street station on the Q line in its footprint…