94-Year-Old Manhattan Man Threatened With Pre-Hanukkah Eviction
Image by Google Maps
Maxwell Levy seems to be due for a December visit from Scrooge, as his landlords attempt once more to evict the nonagenarian from his six-room apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
“They want to get my apartment because they can make a lot more money,” the 94-year-old, who has lived in the same building since the 1950s, told the New York Daily News for a Wednesday article. Levy pays $1,650 a month for his apartment, which is well below market rate.
Pine Management, the owner of his building, has a reputation for playing hardball to kick out tenants in rent-controlled units. Levy has kept up with his rent, but the company has tried to evict him because it alleges that he is a hoarder. The courts have rebuffed previous eviction attempts that raised similar complaints.
Levy still lives independently in the apartment where he raised three daughters. In his working life he taught physics at New York University and ran an electronics repair business.
He won’t be appearing at a Housing Court hearing Wednesday; instead he is sending a representative who has power of attorney. Reflecting his age and apartment situation, he told the Daily News, “I’m living on borrowed time.”
Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter, @DanielJSolomon
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
