Did Landlord Discriminate Against Non-Jewish Tenant In ‘Jewish’ West Side Building?
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
(JTA) — A $5 million lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court charges that a New York City landlord ignored decades of requests for repairs by a tenant because she was a gentile living in a “Jewish building.”
Tenant Sharon Kibbee de Lobo claims in the lawsuit that she has suffered for decades from leaks from a terrace above her Upper West Side apartment, which has caused damage including holes in the ceiling, damaged kitchen cabinets, rotted wood moldings and beams, ruined silk wall paper and sponge-painted walls, and a carpet-beetle infestation, the New York Post reported, citing the lawsuit.
Her complaints “were of no import to management because she lived in a ‘Jewish building’ and she had no rights as a non-Jewish tenant,” a property manager allegedly told her, according to the lawsuit.
A lawyer for the landlord, identified as Ennismore Apartments, disputed the claim, calling it “hard to believe,” according to the Post.
The tenant won a dispute in housing court on Friday, after the landlord refused to let an appliance retailer install a dish washer and stove, but still charged Kibbee de Lobo for the appliances.
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.
