A group of tenants in a nightmare North Fordham building is seeking the removal of their landlord.

Last Thursday, about 30 tenants from 2710 Bainbridge Ave. along with Assemblyman Jose Rivera, attorneys from the Urban Justice Center, and members of the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition (NWBCCC), held a rally after they filed a lawsuit to have their building management transferred to an independent administrator known as a 7A.

There are 980 housing code violations in the 56-unit building, including collapsing ceilings, broken windows and a lack of hot water.

Two hundred of those violations are class C, immediate hazards that could be life threatening.

The landlord, Frank Palazzolo, controls Semper Fi Management Corporation, according to city Department of Finance records, and has a long history of neglecting his properties.
In 2004, the New York Times reported that city officials said Palazzolo buildings had amassed 19,000 violations.

In March, Palazzolo was named to the Village Voice’s annual list of the city’s 10 worst landlords.

Eight years ago, the Norwood News reported on a similar Palazzolo building at 3569 DeKalb Ave. with 387 violations (many of them Cs) after an electrical fire in one apartment claimed the life of an 8-year-old boy. Tenants there, too, had been demanding a 7A in Housing Court. 

The Norwood News tried to contact Palazzolo, but he did not return several messages.

The 30 tenants, which included children of all ages, held signs in both English and Spanish that read, “We are tired of living with roaches and rats,” and “NO More Rats…NO More Bad Landlords.”

“I have to sleep in my boots in the winter time,” irate tenant Peggy Vargas screamed at the rally. “I’ve had two separate surgeries in two years and this is no place to get healthy.”
After the rally, reporters were invited to follow tenants into their apartments.

There are no working locks on the building’s dented front doors. There are no security cameras and tenants demonstrated how none of the locks work on their apartment doors.  One can literally walk in off the street and into any unit in the building.

Tenant Lorenzo Crucito pointed out exposed wires that run through his apartment. Only one light fixture works and the bathroom has several leaks. In the living room, there is a giant hole in the ceiling, which Crucito says rats have fallen through into his apartment.

“I don’t know how much more we can take of this,” Crucito said. “This is just not right to do this to people.”

Walking through the apartments, it is hard to ignore an odor that comes through holes in the walls that residents insist come from dead rats that are in the basement.

 “This is the worst building I’ve ever seen,” said Gabriel Pendas of the NWBCCC.

Outside, Assemblyman Jose Rivera pointed to all the cracks in the concrete outside the building.

“I don’t understand how a senior citizen, like myself, could get to their home through this,” he said. “And look at the door frame, it’s the same wood that was there when the building went up, and there are no locks,” added Rivera. “This is no way for people to live.”

In November 2008, the building became a part of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s (HPD) Alternative Enforcement Program, which was set up to aid the 200 worst buildings in the city.

The program gives the landlord an allotted time to make repairs. If he fails to do so, HPD has the right to make the necessary repairs and charge the landlord.

Palazzolo failed to comply with the program’s requests and told HPD that he had hired private contractors to deal with the situation, but that didn’t happen.

HPD was then supposed to jump in and make the repairs, but a spokesman for the agency said they were denied access to the building. They went to court last year and were finally granted a warrant to enter the building.

HPD representatives recently met with the tenants and told them that after April 12 they will have an idea of when their contractors will be able to begin work.

As for the lawsuit to replace Palazzolo with a temporary administrator, it will begin on May 12.

“We will take down one of the worst landlords this city has ever witnessed,” said Urban Justice Center attorney Garrett Wright, who will represent the tenants.