The 234 Apartment

T wo weeks ago, a Manhattan Supreme Court judge handed down a decision designed to strike fear in the hearts of landlords. Justice James d’Auguste ordered that an independent receiver be appointed to manage two Midtown residential buildings where the landlords allegedly allowed illegal Airbnb rentals to occur. The case, which began when the city sued the landlords in February 2015, has become one of the battlegrounds in a larger war between city enforcement agencies and short- term rental sites like Airbnb. Airbnb, which was recently valued at $31 billion, refuses to release the exact addresses of hosts who break the law by renting their entire apartment for less than 30 days without being present. Without the addresses and names of Airbnb violators , the city mostly targets the owners of buildings that rack up the most illegal hotel complaints from 311 calls and the New York City Department of Buildings. “This entire model—and it was intentional [by the city]—is complaint-drive...

Three of the four men charged with kidnapping and sexually assaulting the girl are also behind bars. The men are from Honduras, immigrants who found a home at the Heatherwood Apartments. The complex, near Peoria and Colfax in Aurora, is a racial melting pot , one that came to a boil on August 7, when a girl trying to leap to womanhood in a single summer got a very adult lesson. The violence bred more violence -- and more victims. News accounts the next day reported that a seventy-person mob had delivered street justice to one of the accused rapists. Although the reports weren't quite right -- nothing in this saga is -- street justice may be the only justice here. Anna grew up in the neighborhood and has a huge family of siblings and half-siblings. Anna has another daughter who was also taken away by Social Services when Anna went to prison. The girls have a baby brother, too, a child Anna gave birth to after she got out of prison two years ago. That baby has a different father w...

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — The NYPD says a 74-year-old woman using a walker was attacked by a man who they say tried to rape her in the Bronx. It happened Friday night inside an apartment building near East 161st Street and Park Avenue in the Morrisania section of the borough. Investigators say the woman unknowingly followed the suspect into an elevator. In surveillance video, her walker is visible behind the man, who appears to be talking on a cell phone. (credit: NYPD) Police said the victim knew something was wrong when the man followed her off the elevator on the 11th floor, asking him if he lived in the building. As she approached her apartment door, police said the man attacked, putting her in a choke hold in the hallway. Police said he groped the woman before she was able to bang on a neighbor’s door for help. Investigators say it was the neighbor’s screams that sent the suspect running. Throughout the attack, the woman asked, “why me, why are you doing this,” but he never gave...

Eventually the Civic Arena, which many came to see as a harbinger of the community’s destruction, was torn down and replaced with the modern PPG Paints Arena . Half a block away, the Freedom Corner was dedicated in 2001, commemorating the civil rights leaders of the 1950s and 1960s who sought to maintain the Hill District. It is also a symbolic gateway to the neighborhood. In 2006, a proposal to build a casino in the lower Hill District was overwhelmingly rejected by residents. To this day, the sphere of influence from downtown generally stops at Crawford Street, which for me was a jarring reminder of how ghosts from the past don’t easily dissipate. Though much of Wilson’s Pittsburgh is gone, you could use his words to tour the district. I did so, led by Kimberly C. Ellis, a digital consultant and founder of the preservation- minded Historic Hill Institute , who is also the playwright’s niece. “The neighborhood has changed a lot,” she said, adding that “there is a renewed level of p...

At her 33rd appearance as Subject 16019 in a clinical trial of an experimental drug she hoped would fix "this little problem with my memory," Sandra Brannon sank into a medical exam room 's recliner and waited. "What's the date again?" Sandra asked me. I had escorted her to a wing at Bellevue Hospital Center in Manhattan, where the NYU Langone Medical Center was among 210 institutions worldwide conducting the trial. As a family friend, I was standing in for Sandra's only child and chief caregiver, who had business elsewhere that morning. "November 18th," I answered. I'd responded to the same question from Sandra four times during our 27- minute subway ride to a stop a few blocks from Bellevue. "Right. Got it." Sandra scribbled my reply on her cheat sheet as a nurse bounded through the door to prep her for her monthly intravenous infusion of solanezumab, which Eli Lilly developed to target mild cognitive impairment caused ...