‘Greedy Jewish Landlords’ Are Problem: New York Council Candidate

Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky

By Daniel J. Solomon April 24, 2017

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Blasting “greedy Jewish landlords” for their “ethnic cleansing” of black and Hispanic renters, Thomas Lopez-Pierre is mounting a bid for New York City Council.

The district he’s running in takes in parts of the Upper West Side, Morningside Heights and Washington Heights – areas that contain large Jewish populations.

“Jewish Landlords … are at the forefront of ethnic cleansing/pushing Black/Hispanic tenants out of their apartments,” Lopez-Pierre writes on his Web site.

He will face district incumbent Mark Levine in this fall’s Democratic primary, which is decisive in choosing who will occupy the seat. Lopez-Pierre is currently angling to raise enough money to secure $100,000 in matching funds from New York City, and he claims to have raised more than half the necessary amount.

This isn’t Lopez-Pierre’s first brush with notoriety. Back in 2013, when he initially faced Levine, he said his rival wanted “to sneak into office like a thief in the night.” Previously, he attempted to found a social club in Harlem that would only admit rich black and Latino men and attractive women of color.

He said at the time: “I want it all, and I got it all. There are men who want the same.”

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon

Daniel J. Solomon is the former Assistant to the Editor/News Writer at the Forward. Originally from Queens, he attended Harvard as an undergraduate, where he wrote his senior thesis on French-Jewish intellectual history. He is excited to have returned to New York after his time in Massachusetts. Daniel’s passions include folk music, cycling, and pointed argument.