The East Village is a neighborhood on the East Side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, United States. It is roughly defined as the area east of the Bowery and Third Avenue, between 14th Street on the north and Houston Street on the south. The East Village contains three subsections: Alphabet City, in reference to the single-letter-named avenues that are located to the east of First Avenue; Little Ukraine, near Second Avenue and 6th and 7th Streets; and the Bowery, located around the street of the same name.
Eviction is the removal of a tenant from rental property by the landlord. In some jurisdictions it may also involve the removal of persons from premises that were foreclosed by a mortgagee.
Penn South, officially known as Mutual Redevelopment Houses and formerly Penn Station South, is a limited-equity housing cooperative development located between Eighth and Ninth Avenues and West 23rd and 29th Streets, in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. The complex has 2,820 units in ten 22-story buildings. Penn South is so named because of its location southwest of New York Penn Station.
Knickerbocker Village Limited is a housing development in Manhattan, New York City. It is situated between the Manhattan Bridge and Brooklyn Bridge, in the Two Bridges section of the Lower East Side. Although the location was generally considered to fall in the Lower East Side, it has come to be thought of as part of Chinatown in recent years and the majority of residents are Chinese. It is located a short distance from New York City Hall, Civic Center, and the South Street Seaport. The complex consists of 1,590 apartments in twelve 13-story brick buildings surrounding two courtyards.
Benjamin J. Kallos is an American attorney and politician who represented the 5th district of the New York City Council from 2014 to 2021, and now serves in the Executive Office of the President in the United States Digital Service. He is a Democrat. The district includes East Harlem, Midtown, Murray Hill, Roosevelt Island and the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Kallos is also a software developer who ran his office on Agile, and has office hours at green markets.
Janet Freeman was an American community organizer and activist for tenant's rights in New York City's lower Manhattan. On June 20, 2013, the corner of Elizabeth Street and Kenmare Street was co-named "Janet Freeman Way" by the New York City Council in her memory and to commemorate her activism on behalf of the community. According to NYC Streets in its listing of street names and their honorees, "Janet Freeman was a community organizer and tenant advocate. She founded the Croman Tenants Association; the Coalition to Protect Public Housing and Section 8; and Co-op Watch, to prevent evictions through phony conversions. She started campaigns to organize tenants against aggressive landlords, phony demolitions, and harassment in and around Chinatown and Little Italy."
The Crown Heights Tenant Union (CHTU) is a tenants union created in October 2013 to unify old and new tenants against the gentrification of the neighborhood of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, New York City. The CHTU has pushed for local collective bargaining agreements between tenants and landlords to be written into the deeds of buildings that would regulate rent increases and codify repair and renovation standards. They also assist individual tenants, educating them on their rights and how to enforce them, lobby in Albany for better rent laws, and participate in direct action, targeting predatory equity real-estate companies they believe to be involved in illegal evictions and harassment tactics.
The Elizabeth Street Garden is a one-acre (0.40 ha) community sculpture garden in the Nolita neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, located on Elizabeth Street between Prince and Spring Streets. The garden is owned by the city government and managed by the eponymous Elizabeth Street Garden (ESG), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and open to the public for general use and community events.
The Hotel Marguery was the first of three buildings located at 270 Park Avenue in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. It was a six-building apartment hotel complex built in 1917 as part of Terminal City. It was demolished in 1957 to make way for the Union Carbide Building.
Eviction in the United States refers to the pattern of tenant removal by landlords in the United States. In an eviction process, landlords forcibly remove tenants from their place of residence and reclaim the property. Landlords may decide to evict tenants who have failed to pay rent, violated lease terms, or possess an expired lease. Landlords may also choose not to renew a tenant's lease, however, this does not constitute an eviction. In the United States, eviction procedures, landlord rights, and tenant protections vary by state and locality. Historically, the United States has seen changes in domestic eviction rates during periods of major socio-political and economic turmoil—including the Great Depression, the 2008 Recession, and the COVID-19 pandemic. High eviction rates are driven by affordable housing shortages and rising housing costs. Across the United States, low-income and disadvantaged neighborhoods have disproportionately higher eviction rates. Certain demographics—including low income renters, Black and Hispanic renters, women, and people with children—are also at a greater risk of eviction. Additionally, eviction filings remain on renters' public records. This can make it more difficult for renters to access future housing, since most landlords will not rent to a tenant with a history of eviction. Eviction and housing instability are also linked to many negative health and life outcomes, including homelessness, poverty, and poor mental and physical health.
Zellnor Myrie is an American politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he has served in the New York State Senate since 2019, representing the 20th state senate district, which includes parts of Brooklyn. In 2024, Myrie formed an exploratory committee to run for Mayor of New York City in the 2025 mayoral election.
The Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 (HSTPA) is a New York state statute that introduced major changes to landlord-tenant law.
Frances Axler Goldin was a housing rights activist and literary agent in New York City. She was a founding member of the Metropolitan Council on Housing and the Cooper Square Committee. Beginning in 1959, she led a successful campaign to defeat an urban renewal plan of Robert Moses, which would have replaced historic, affordable housing with a freeway in the Lower East Side. For decades, Goldin was associated with the Lower East Side, where she was a neighborhood preservationist and community figure. The 175 Essex Building of Essex Crossing is named in her honor, and she was profiled in the documentary It Took 50 Years.
Cancel rent is a slogan and tenant rights movement in the United States, which advocates for the cancellation of rental payments and suspension of mortgage payments during the coronavirus pandemic. Activists and organizations have also presented other demands, which include the cancellation of housing-related expenses, cancellation of late fees for housing payments, the establishment of a landlord hardship fund, an increase in emergency housing, and an eviction moratorium. The movement was triggered by the economic impact of the pandemic, in which mass business closures and employee layoffs resulted in financial insecurity for many Americans. Tenants faced a range of issues, including the inability to pay rent, harassment or intimidation from landlords, and potential eviction. This situation put tenants at risk of damaged credit ratings, food insecurity, and homelessness. Consequently, activists, tenants rights organizations, and some politicians have called for the cancellation of rent.
Twin Parks is a housing development in the Bronx, New York City. Its buildings were designed by leading architects, and were widely hailed as "the cutting edge of public design" when constructed in the early 1970s.
A tenants union, also known as a tenants association, is a group of tenants that collectively organize to improve the conditions of their housing and mutually educate about their rights as renters. Groups may also lobby local officials to change housing policies or address homelessness.
Steven Croman is a real estate owner in New York City. In 1990, Croman incorporated the management and brokerage firm Croman Real Estate and quickly grew his business, owning 20 buildings by the end of the decade and 150 buildings by 2016, mostly in Manhattan's East Village. 9300 Realty was subsequently rebranded as Centennial Properties NY.
The Kansas City Tenants Union, also known as KC Tenants, is a non-profit tenant's union in Kansas City, Missouri. It was founded in 2019 by Tiana Caldwell and Tara Raghuveer.
The 1907 New York City rent strike or the East Side rent strike lasted from December 26, 1907, to January 9, 1908. The rent strike began in response to a proposed rent increase in the wake of the Panic of 1907 which saw tens of thousands unemployed. It began in the Lower East Side and the predominant organizers were Jewish immigrant women in the neighborhood such as Pauline Newman, who played a major role in organizing the strike. It eventually spread to other areas of Manhattan and Brooklyn, comprising approximately 10,000 tenants. The strike was taken over by the Eight Assembly District of the Socialist Party of America in early 1908. Due to mass evictions and police brutality, the strike was broken, though approximately 2,000 successfully halted rent increases.
The 1918–1920 New York City rent strikes were some of the most significant tenant mobilizations against landlords in New York City history. Prior to the strikes, a housing shortage caused by World War I exacerbated tenant conditions, with the construction industry being redirected to wartime efforts. In addition, newly available defense jobs attracted thousands of new families to the city, further driving property vacancy rates down. As a result, overcrowding, poor conditions, frequent raising of rents and speculation by landlords were common. These long term circumstances, and a nationwide coal shortage which culminated in a dangerous heating crisis for tenants, became the catalysts for the subsequent organizing and wave of rent strikes across the city.
