“Boot-licking motherfucker!” a protester shouted again and again as parents and children entered and exited the Museum of Chinese in America.
One of those parents took time to complain to the local City Council member, Christopher Marte.
“It was clear that she had NO concern for my children’s well-being!” the parent wrote. “I was deeply TRAUMATIZED. … My children were shaken and upset.”
This was in 2023. But it was not an isolated incident.
One Saturday the following year, the same parent and young children went back to the museum, known as MOCA, for arts and crafts activities. They were again accosted by demonstrators.
“While I believe that everyone has the right to peacefully protest, these protesters were aggressive and rude,” the parent wrote. “They were shouting not only at me and my spouse but also at our children who are minors. They were recording all of us, including our children, on their smartphones.”
At times, the demonstrators “get very close as though they were threatening violence towards the visitors,” the complaint added.
The parent learned from a Chinatown newspaper that the bullhorn-wielding woman leading the protest that Saturday was Caitlin Kelmar, Marte’s chief of staff.
Kelmar joined Youth Against Displacement, one of the activist groups that continues to demonstrate outside the museum four days a week, in 2018.
Youth Against Displacement’s goal is to stop anything its misguided members perceive to be gentrification in Chinatown, and to that end are waging a propaganda campaign on social media against one of its commercial landlords, Jonathan Chu.
They singled out Chu in part because he co-chaired MOCA’s board when it received $35 million from the de Blasio administration to buy its building, part of a community benefits package negotiated by Marte’s predecessor, Margaret Chin, before the Rikers Island shutdown vote.
Such funding is standard politics when the city does something controversial in a neighborhood. In this case, it is replacing the Tombs, a jail at 125 White Street, just outside of Chinatown, with a mixed-use tower that will include a larger jail.
Kelmar told me her participation in Youth Against Displacement is outside of her job. She denied that when an elected official’s staff member participates in such activities, it reflects upon her boss.
But obviously, it does. That is why politicians fire staffers caught doing offensive things. Kelmar’s continued employment indicates that Marte condones, if not supports, protesters yelling profanities at children or slandering the head of a three-generation family real estate firm.
A spokesperson for Marte said the Council member supports the protests because of the $35 million and disagrees with Chu’s leasing space to a furniture retailer where a dim sum restaurant had closed four years before. He added, “As for Council member Marte’s staff, what they choose to do on their own time is their personal decision.”
I’ll have more on this sordid story in a future edition of my column, Reality Check.
What we’re thinking about: In response to my column about illegal subletting of rent-stabilized housing, one owner of Bronx buildings wrote, “Now we should also talk about when the tenant stops paying rent, but continues to collect the sublease rents as he/she jerks the landlord around in housing court for 18 – 24 months.”
A creative district attorney could probably find a criminal charge for that, but tenants have done a lot worse without any DA taking action. Send your thoughts to eengquist@therealdeal.com.
A thing we’ve learned: In 12 months ending June 30, 2024, the city handed out one-shot deals totaling $484 million to 47,600 tenant households — an average of more than $10,000, Gothamist reported.
Elsewhere…
Passive house apartment buildings aren’t as rare as you might think.
Forty multifamily buildings in the state of New York — mostly in New York City — have been certified by Passive House Institute U.S., having passed post-construction testing. Phius has also “design certified” another 183 apartment buildings, meaning their plans have been modeled and approved by the organization.
An unknown number of buildings are built to passive house standards but, to save on fees, have not been certified.
Phius certifies the vast majority of passive building projects in the U.S., but there are other certifying bodies. Its certification fees depend on the size of the building. For example, 10,000 square feet would cost $10,000 and 100,000 square feet would cost $30,600. Fees for nonresidential properties are marginally higher.
Closing time
Residential: The top residential deal recorded Thursday was $55 million for a 14,825-square-foot, single-family townhouse at 8 East 62nd Street in Lenox Hill. Adam D. Modlin had the listing.
Commercial: The top commercial deal recorded was $81.5 million for The Watermark at Brooklyn Heights, 21 Clark Street. Kayne Anderson Real Estate sold the senior community to Invesco.
New to the Market: The highest price for a residential property hitting the market was $8.8 million for a 3,639-square-foot, sponsor-sale unit at 1 Wall Street, Harry Macklowe’s condo conversion in the Financial District. Leonard Inzirillo and Jake Franco have the listing.
— Matthew Elo
