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Ex-Buildings boss schemed to empty fire victim shelter to get a luxury condo, Manhattan DA says
By
David Brand
Published Sep 15, 2023
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Photo by David Brand
By
David Brand
Published Sep 15, 2023
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As New York City stared down an unprecedented rise in homelessness last year, its buildings commissioner was allegedly scheming with a deep-pocketed developer to clear fire victims from a Rockaway Park emergency shelter in exchange for a discounted luxury condo nearby, Manhattan prosecutors charged Wednesday.
Eric Ulrich, the former commissioner of the Department of Buildings, faces 16 counts of bribery and conspiracy stemming from an array of alleged pay-to-play schemes benefiting associates with business before the city.
In indictments unsealed on Wednesday, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg accused Ulrich, a Republican former councilmember whom Mayor Eric Adams appointed to lead the city's buildings department, of trading favors like rezoning approvals and expedited permits in Queens for a luxury apartment discount, Mets season tickets and a tailored suit, among other expensive gifts.
Amid the influence-peddling allegations, one indictment accuses Ulrich of attempting to orchestrate the eviction of men and women from 52 single-room occupancy apartments on Beach 116th Street, while simultaneously negotiating with developer Mark Caller for a steep discount on a condo across the street, court records show. Ulrich also allegedly helped Caller win approval for a rezoning on the block. The failed removal effort took place shortly before Adams appointed Ulrich, a political ally and adviser with no management or buildings experience, to lead the Department of Buildings.
The unsealed indictment details pieces of an ongoing conversation between Ulrich and Caller as they attempted to oust the residents in the early spring of 2022.
Both Caller and Ulrich maintain they did nothing wrong.
Ulrich neither responded to a voicemail nor answered the intercom when Gothamist buzzed his unit on Thursday. A neighbor exiting the condo complex said he had not seen Ulrich for around two weeks.
John McCarten
Tale of two buildings
The two Rockaway Park buildings face each other in a stark “Tale of Two Cities” contrast. On one side of the street, the weathered four-story residence features shared bathrooms and microwaves located in the hallways. The luxury condo complex across the way — where Ulrich allegedly leased a condo for half the going rate with an option to count the rent toward a discounted down payment — rises eight stories and features patios, a penthouse and a ground-floor gym.
While residents pay up to $1.5 million for condos in the building known as One Sixteen, the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development rents rooms across the street to house people displaced by fires, floods and vacate orders issued by the DOB — the agency Ulrich once led.
Jaime Valle, 77, said he moved into a unit in the building two weeks ago after the DOB ordered him out of an illegally converted basement apartment that he rented in Kensington. Valle said the Red Cross put up in a hotel for a few weeks before HPD transferred him to the Rockaway Park building.
“I hope they don’t close it because some of the people that are here need it, just like I need it now,” Valle said, adding that there was “no way” he could afford another apartment with his Social Security check.
He said he is trying to get transferred to an emergency shelter closer to his doctors in Manhattan, where he regularly travels for spinal stenosis treatment.
Another resident named Mike said he has lived in the building for four years after a fire in his Crown Heights apartment left him homeless. He declined to provide his last name because he fears harassment from city officials and police after several recent run-ins with authorities who confiscated his bicycles. He said he was also placed in the building by the Red Cross and HPD.
“We’re basically poor here,” he said, recalling last year’s DOB inspections and recent police responses to complaints. “I thought they were going to empty us out.”
Mike, 50, said he earns money collecting cans, bottles and discarded bicycles. He said the apartment building, like other similar properties in the neighborhood, has remained a focus of community opposition.
“There’s people with money and people without money. The [single-room occupancy buildings] are over here, and they’re over there,” he said, gesturing to either side of Beach 116th Street, a major commercial corridor with trendy bars and surf shops adjacent to vacant storefronts and rundown properties. “That’s probably normal conversation around here.”
Jaime Valle, 77, became homeless after DOB issued a vacate order on his basement apartment in Kensington last month. The Red Cross put him in a hotel before HPD moved him to the building in Rockaway Park.
Photo by David Brand
‘Creative’ solutions
In WhatsApp messages and recorded phone calls, Manhattan prosecutors allege Ulrich and Caller schemed to use the DOB and the FDNY to issue a vacate order on the property, which has long housed low-income New Yorkers with rent subsidies or a need for emergency accommodations.
“‘The guy across the street has got to go,’” Ulrich told Caller in a WhatsApp message on March 24, 2022 detailed in the indictment.
“There has to be a way to put 158 B116th out of business. It’s an absolute disgrace,” Caller responded, according to the charging document.
The pair then discussed the cost and terms of a condo Ulrich planned to rent and later purchase from Caller and his firm, Marcal Group, in the luxury complex across the street. Ulrich noted that a “task force” of DOB and FDNY inspectors could clear the unwanted building.
“They might have to vacate the f-----g thing,” Ulrich said, according to the indictment. “It’ll take months to get it reopened.”
Four days later, on March 28, 2022, Ulrich told Caller in a recorded phone call captured by prosecutors that the task force was set to inspect, “and there’s a good chance they may vacate the building.”
The indictment describes how Ulrich contacted an assemblymember — referred to in the charging document as “Jane Doe No. 1" — about the plan to shut down the site. The unnamed assemblymember agreed to email DOB to request an inspection.
Ulrich told the assemblymember “to make sure FDNY and DOB issue a full vacate order so the occupants can be moved by the New York City Department of Homeless Services into alternative housing units,” the indictment continues.
On April 4, 2022, less than two weeks after Ulrich and Caller allegedly discussed the plan to clear the building, DOB and FDNY inspectors responded to a report of a “poorly maintained exterior showing signs of corrosion,” according to the DOB complaint.
“Inspection revealed that the premises was reasonably well maintained, no structural compromising or unsafe conditions observed, all egress and fire escape accessible,” the inspectors wrote.
The next day, Ulrich, working as an adviser to the mayor at the time, pressured an unnamed DOB employee for the results of the inspection, with the employee responding that he told the inspector to “be creative” when it came to investigating the site, court records show.
Building inspectors returned on April 11 to respond to yet another complaint, this time for work without a permit. They found no construction was being done, according to the DOB complaint.
The building’s owner, Uri Dreifus, whose phone number is posted in the building lobby, did not respond to calls seeking comment.
HPD, the city housing agency that places people in the apartments, declined to provide comment on the alleged effort to clear the building. Phone numbers for the agency and a specific case manager are posted in the lobby, alongside guidance on applying for public housing and rental assistance vouchers. The case manager listed in the lobby did not return a phone call on Thursday.
DOB declined to answer questions about whether Ulrich ordered or played a role in other investigations into emergency shelters or low-income housing, and whether they would analyze the basis for those requests. An agency spokesperson referred questions to City Hall.
Charles Lutvak, a spokesperson for City Hall, said officials in the Adams administration “always expect all our employees to adhere to the strictest ethical guidelines” and did not have more information about the alleged crimes.
Lutvak added that “the mayor has not received any requests from the Manhattan DA surrounding this matter and has never spoken to Mr. Ulrich about this investigation.”
Ulrich’s attorney Samuel Braverman declined to comment on the claims that Ulrich tried to use his influence to clear the Beach 116th Street building.
“Mr. Ulrich unequivocally denies these charges and looks forward to his day in court where only the evidence matters, not charging documents or press releases,” he said in a statement.
Caller’s attorney Benjamin Brafman said the developer “did not commit any crime whatsoever” and said the charges are “predicated on a flawed theory, as Mr. Ulrich obtained an apartment in one of Mr. Callers’ buildings at market rate.”
In WhatsApp messages, Ulrich and Caller discussed vacating the low-income housing in Rockaway Beach, according to court records.
Photo by David Brand
A community divided
Complaints about crime and disorder have dogged the apartment building at 158 Beach 116th St. for much of the past decade, though it was clean and quiet with few people coming and going on Thursday morning.
Several local residents passing by the two buildings said neighbors would like to see the emergency shelter removed. A large parking lot sits nearby and they suspect it will one day be turned into another luxury complex.
Don Moran, a retired NYPD detective, said the building is unpopular among neighbors, but added that concerns of crime there are overblown.
“It’s a tough situation. It’s been here for a long time,” Moran said. “But yes, they have been trying to have these buildings vacated for many years… they’ve been trying to redo this whole block.”
Moran said the situation was complicated because he thinks the city “should use buildings to place people displaced by fires.”
Charles Campbell, a deli worker who lives in a beachfront apartment nearby, said he has had no problems with the residents of 158 Beach 116th St.
“There’s not too many people standing around,” he said. “People need shelters, they gotta be somewhere.”
Over the past three decades, the site has been used as a so-called “welfare hotel” for low-income New Yorkers and faced protests from community members over the potential placement of a homeless shelter or drug treatment facility.
Retired electrician Ray Rivera said he wouldn’t mind seeing the building and others like it removed.
As for Ulrich’s alleged abuse of power, Rivera said he wasn’t surprised.
“It’s like they’re stabbing us in the back,” he said. “All they worry about is money, making money, and taking care of their family. They don’t care about us.”
Tagged
new york city
queens
housing
eric adams
David Brand
David is a reporter covering housing for Gothamist and WNYC. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal 908-310-3960.
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