Politicians Call on FDIC To Protect Home to Hip Hop

Clive Campbell, better known as DJ Kool Herc, held parties in the community room of 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the early 1970s that are now considered key to the development of hip hop. Along with tenants, politicians and community organizers, DJ Kool Herc fought against plans to remove the building from a state-run rent regulation program and sell it to an investor.

 

"It was a great place to live, and Kool Herc has said on many occasions that it was living in this stable community that freed him up to explore what became known as hip hop," said Dina Levy, director of organizing and policy at the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, a tenant advocacy group. The campaign was unsuccessful and the building was sold in 2008. Once the new owner took over, conditions deteriorated rapidly and the building eventually fell into foreclosure.

 

In what housing campaigners say is a hopeful sign, 1520 Sedgwick Avenue was recently bought by a non-profit witch plans to return it to rent regulation. Dina Levy said the provision in the financial reform bill was designed to make sure other buildings in foreclosure were sold to responsible landlords by asking federal regulators to crack down on the banks that financed the mortgages.

 

On Thursday, local politicians, residents and housing activists gathered outside another dilapidated Bronx building to launch the opening salvo in a battle against New York State's biggest savings and loan -- which, they say, is exacerbating the growing threat to affordable housing in New York City. New York Community Bank has been accused of trying to profit from the seizure of foreclosed apartment buildings in the area, selling the buildings at prices reminiscent of the height of the housing boom. But property prices have taken a hit, and tenants say conditions at the buildings -- run-down even during the market's flush years -- have deteriorated further.

 

by Yepoka Yeebo