A British company, The New York Times reports, had the same idea as the Lembi’s did, and met a similar fate. Dawnay Day bought up 47 rent controlled apartment buildings in East Harlem hoping to “ease out” the lower paying tenants and rehabilitate the apartments for a more affluent crowd of urban pioneers. The bottom fell out from underneath them and the firm had to sell its yachts and museum quality art collection. As you can imagine, the apartments were not high on their “to do” list. Dawnay Day started charging tenants for basic repairs. As the Times’ article says, “anger, uncertainty and a degree of misery have set in” as the buildings move toward foreclosure.
