Bldg. sale news warms seniors

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Bldg. sale news warms seniors


BY RICK HARRISON
DAILY NEWS WRITER

When the frigid winter wind blew through window cracks into Patricia Lewis' apartment, her baseboard radiator and hot water knobs sat cold and useless.
When a Daily News reporter spent the night in her rundown Harlem icebox in January, Lewis, 55, like many of her building's residents, battled indoor temperatures in the low 40s with her oven - even removed its door completely.

But as spring arrives, Lewis and the other residents of Logan Gardens at 450 W. 131st St. have reason to rejoice.

Title to the six-story building, once the home of the old Knickerbocker Hospital, has been transferred to a nonprofit housing corporation that promises to make the improvements residents have been hoping for.

"It's promising. It's beautiful," said Connie Frazer, 81, who has lived in the building, reserved for the elderly and disabled, for 10 years. "I had so many ice-cold showers this year it's not funny."

The changeover became official last week after the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development foreclosed on the mortgage held by the previous owner, St. Philip's On Convent Ave. Housing Development Fund Corp., because of unpaid property taxes, late mortgage payments and disrepair.

Thanks to pressure by tenant organizations working with Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Rep. Charles Rangel (D-Manhattan) and the city and state, HUD agreed to pass the title to the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development, which sold it to a mutual housing group called CATCH.

The building's tenants will become members of CATCH - an acronym for Community Assisted Tenant Controlled Housing - ensuring that their concerns will be heard.

"The Daily News articles were a lot of help," said James Lewis of Harlem Operation Take Back, an advocacy group that worked with the Logan Gardens tenants to find a suitable landlord. "It put added pressure on the situation and put a spotlight on it."

CATCH pledged to invest $7 million in building repairs with the help of city agencies, private banks and foundations. More than 80% of the building's 104 apartments fail to meet federal housing quality standards, according to the group.

Patricia Lewis, who wouldn't buy a space heater for fear of knocking it over with her wheelchair, hopes her oven-heating days are over.

"I knew this day would come, but your spirits start to dampen," she said. "But I know that [next] winter, we're going to be covered."

Originally published on March 20, 2005