My Time as Eric Galloway's Tenant - Part 4

No More Than a Squatter?

I reported the break-in to my local police precinct. In addition I phoned in a complaint to the buildings department. The compliant was registered as two separate complaints. Construction without a permit and work on Sunday without a variance. I discovered afterward, that someone else in the building made a complaint on Saturday March 5, 2005 as the illegal break-in and demolition was taking place.


Ultimately what he did by breaking into my unit was illegally combine my unit and the vacant warehoused unit next door. I discovered that this was Galloway's standard operating procedure. He would do illegal conversions and other work he didn't want Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) to know about on the weekends when HPD inspectors are not on duty.


The complaint for construction without a permit was was eventually dismissed because the inspector could not gain access to inspect the building on 3/11/2005 or on 3/21/2005. That is because the building had no buzzer or intercom. The front door was always locked and unless someone called, there was no way to contact tenants or the Superintendent for access. The complaint for work on a Sunday without a variance was dismissed because “No violation warranted for complaint at time of inspection”. That inspection took place nearly a year after the violation was reported, on 1/2/2006!


On Monday March 7^th I went to Housing Court and filed an order to show cause. This stayed the landlord from re-letting the unit and from removing any contents, which at that point was too late. In order for the case to be heard the following day I needed to serve the landlord by 5pm which I managed to do. That put the case on the calendar for Tuesday March 8^th.

Order to Show Cause for the Illegal Break-In/Possession

At the hearing, the attorney presented an Affirmation in Opposition with their answer and five exhibits.

The first four exhibits were my friends original lease for Unit 6; the renewal lease form showing the legal rent for Unit 6; the new lease which was just executed in my name for Unit 25 and my rental application for Unit 25. The final exhibit was two documents which were never signed by me and never presented to me to sign. I assume they were created solely for the answer.

Bogus Move-In Form

Bogus Move-Out Form

I'll repeat that these documents had never been presented to me nor had they been signed by me.

At the initial conference with the judge, the defendant's attorney hemmed and hawed, claimed that I was really “no more than a squatter”. Of course the landlord had just signed a lease with me, hardly something someone would do with a “squatter”. The judge sent us to conference with his aide.

In the conference, the aide kept pressing the landlord's attorney to explain whether they had legal possession of Unit 6. He continued to dance around the issue. Finally after about 10 minutes the attorney stated “If my client had asked my advice about this, I would have advised against it”. To which the Judge's aide said, “So you didn't have possession. So how do we fix this”?

After a little more back and forth, it was agreed that the Lihtan Co. would pay me $2,750. In exchange I withdrew the petition.

Next – Putting it all back togetherand the electrical problem.


Start at Part 1

My Time as Eric Galloway's Tenant - Part 3

Where the F@%$ is my stuff?

When I got back to the city on Sunday I noticed a light on in my unit that I knew I had not left on. When I got up to the unit, the locks had been changed, but the door to the vacant unit next door was open. I went in and discovered that they had broken through the wall between the vacant unit and my unit. All of my belongings were gone.

Wall broken through to illegally gain access to my unit.

I then went up to the new unit. All I could do was open the door. The unit was filled with garbage bags. All of my belongings had been thrown into trash bags, all in no particular order, shoeswith books with CDs with food.

All of my possessions were moved to my new leased unit without my knowledge or permission.

Needless to say, I was furious! I called the emergency contact number for the building and a very young associate came to the building. I asked what the F@%$ they were thinking and said that they had no right to do what they had done. He replied that they did have a right to do it. When I again explained that they did not have legal possession of the unit and that they had no right to enter it, he again said , "yes, we had a right". He said that they would put me up in the "gay guest house" on 22nd Street for the night and would see what they could do on Monday. He also said that "I should be happy, since they moved me for free"!


I told him that rather than take him up on his "generous offer", that I was going to the police precinct to report the break-in. To which he said that I could either do it their way, or my way.


I had had enough. I chose my way.


Next - No more than a squatter?


Start at Part 1

My time as Eric Galloway's Tenant - Part 2

Galloway Buys the Building

When I first moved in, the building was owned by a woman who lived in another borough. Then Eric Galloway and The Lighton Group, one of the many corporations he owns, bought it. That's when everything started going downhill.

Notices appeared on doors, people in the building were telling stories of being harassed, a number of people who had been subletting were told that one way or another, they would be evicted. Some tenants (probably due to immigration status) started leaving on their own, rather than get involved with the system.

Maintenance in the building faltered. Rats, mice, roaches and bedbugs all became a problem.  Mysterious leaks from vacant apartments became common. More tenants left. Once they left, he did not re-rent the units.

One day I had a knock on the door. It was Eric Galloway. I explained that I had nowhere else to go and that I intended to assert my rights in court. He then offered to "help me out". He offered to lease me an apartment on the top floor in my own name, it was a little larger than the unit I was in (about 125 sq. ft) and it had a small kitchenette for $400. I told him I'd think about it. But I also said that even if I were to take his offer, that I could not surrender the right to the apartment held by my friend who I was subletting from. He said that he didn't care about that.

In the meantime I was communicating with my friend in Greece about the clear drive by Galloway to empty the building and of his offer. He told me to take the new unit and he would figure out what to do when he returned to the States.

I signed the new lease on  Friday. After I did, his assistant asked when I could move upstairs. I told him that I was paid up through the month in the downstairs unit and it was only the first of the month, but that I planned on moving up everything in the next week or so.

That did not sit well with him. He said "You mean you can't move up this weekend"? To which I responded no, that I was going away for the weekend to see my mother. I left with my newly signed lease and thought nothing further about it.

Next - Where the F@%$ is my stuff?

Start at Part 1

My time as Eric Galloway's Tenant - Part 1

This is the first in a six part series of posts which detail my time as a tenant in a building owned by Eric Galloway and his companies.

The Move In

In 2005 I was living in the most deluxe and largest apartment I had ever lived in in NYC at 225 Rector Place. Apartments in Battery Park City that had been damaged in 9/11 had been discounted from the luxury rents they had once commanded. In addition, the state kicked in a monthly subsidy check for two years, to get people back into the buildings. I shared the apartment with my then boyfriend, but it was still an expensive apartment for me.  Now the subsidy was ending and the rents were going back to market level. I had to go.

225 Rector Place (Google Street View)

At around the same time, a friend asked me if I knew anyone who might be interested in renting his "apartment" in Chelsea. He was headed to Greece to study for a year or two and wanted to sublet the unit.

It was not really an apartment, but rather an extremely small (10' x 7') unit in a Single Room Occupancy (SRO) building on 19th Street in Chelsea.  The rent was $322 a month.

336 West 19th Street The single window over the door was my unit. (Google Street View)

The building was at one time a five story, one family town house. Now it was cut up into six rental units on each of five floors for a total of 30 units. Each floor had a shared bathroom.

Having lived in the most expensive apartment that I'd ever lived in for the past two years I decided to sublet the unit, figuring that it would be great to pay the lowest rent I'd ever paid in the 25 years I had lived in NYC.

Fitting my entire life into 70 square feet was an ordeal. I purged many of my possessions and put others in storage. The unit had high ceilings so I built a loft, increasing my square footage to almost 140 sq. feet. I then purchased enough Elfa shelving to shelve the entire inside wall. Living in such a small space requires using every inch of vertical space.

It took some adjusting, but after a while I grew to like my extremely paired down life. There was something freeing about it. It was also a huge relief to not have most of my money going to pay rent.

The building was a mixed bag, a few old men, a few addicts/alcoholics, but mostly it was young men, some trying to find their way in NYC, and others who were living with HIV/AIDS and trying to manage or survive. I fell in the latter category, HIV+ and dealing with a number of complicated, but not life threatening issues.

This was not a Supportive Housing building. It was simply an SRO that provided small units at affordable (rent stabilized) prices.

Coming up next: Eric Galloway buys the building.