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This Park Slope brownstone was fought over for years. Then gunshots rang out.
By
Ben Feuerherd
and
David Brand
Published Mar 5, 2025
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Audrey Cooper/Gothamist
By
Ben Feuerherd
and
David Brand
Published Mar 5, 2025
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For years, Park Slope residents Lauri and John McBride have wondered about the rotating cast of characters living in the brownstone next door.
After the building’s longtime owner died in 2014, the property, valued at $3.5 million on the listings site Zillow, fell into disrepair. In the past six years, the McBrides met various people who lived there. Some claimed to own the house. One group of residents even put up a sign that advertised a church at the building.
164 St. John's Place in Park Slope.
Ben Feuerherd / Gothamist
Police said 911 dispatchers have received 10 calls about 164 St. John’s Place over the last six months. Then on Saturday, police said someone fired shots in front of the brownstone. No one was injured, but police blocked traffic and trained rifles on the house for several hours, said Lauri McBride, 72. Three people who live in the house were arrested. David Rodriguez, Mamadou Bah and Kenton Degale were each charged with possessing one round of ammunition and altered paper money – all misdemeanors. Attorneys for Degale and Rodriguez did not return requests for comment. Bah’s attorney declined to comment.
It’s not clear how long Rodriguez, Bah and Degale have lived in the three-story home – a brownstone on a leafy street in one of the city’s most expensive ZIP codes. Nor is it clear whether they pay rent and to whom.
But numerous interviews and documents show that after the owner died, the property fell into a complicated real estate struggle involving a lender, speculators, a public administrator and an 84-year-old relative who says she’s the rightful heir to the home. It’s a situation real estate experts say is true for thousands of homes in New York City, as investors vie for low-cost properties they can flip for hefty profits — at times through fraudulent means. The city’s sheriff’s office fielded at least 3,500 complaints about deed fraud between 2014 and 2023.
"This is an example of all of the problems that we see when people don't have adequate estate planning services in a market like New York, where property values are so high and there's so much equity to be mined out of communities,” said Scott Kohanowski, the general counsel at the Center for New York City Neighborhoods, who reviewed property records and lawsuit documents.
City property records show the deceased former owner, Rudolph Clark, first purchased the building at least as early as 1965. He later transferred the home to a limited liability company he owned in 1977 before again putting it in his own name in 1999.
According to Rudolph Clark’s sister-in-law, 84-year-old Florine Clark, he was born in the United States and returned to his native Belize when he was young, where he contracted measles – a disease that left him hard of hearing.
He returned to the United States and built a career in real estate, Florine Clark said, ultimately settling at 164 St. John’s Place. She said he never married or had children.
“He would always say ‘hello’ and things like that and he seemed like a nice guy,” recalled neighbor John McBride, 76. “But he became more reclusive as he got older.”
John McBride lives next door.
Ben Feuerherd / Gothamist
Florine Clark said that at the end of his life, Rudolph Clark went to a nursing home in Far Rockaway where she helped care for him. His death in 2014 touched off what has become an all-out real estate war, pitting speculators, a private equity firm, a city official tasked with administering the estates of deceased New Yorkers, current residents and Clark’s surviving family against each other.
Before Rudolph Clark died, a bank had sought to foreclose on the property to recoup more than $760,000 owed in back taxes, according to a civil suit filed by a bank in 2011. The case is ongoing and involves at least 10 potential heirs, records show.
Queens’ Public Administrator Lois Rosenblatt was given possession of the building in 2019 amid the ownership and foreclosure disputes.
Florine Clark claims Rudolph Clark left her the property in his will. And at least two different real estate investors, with nearly identical company names, have approached and tried to cajole her into signing away whatever stake she has in the property, she said. The brownstone’s water and electrical bills still come to her home in Far Rockaway, she said in an interview.
One company, 164 Saint Johns Place LLC, claims it entered into a contract of sale with Florine Clark to purchase the property in 2022, according to a lawsuit filed in Brooklyn Supreme Court.
In 2023, the second company – 164 St. Johns Group LLC – produced a “declaration of restriction” that bore Florine Clark’s signature. The document ostensibly blocks her from selling her stake in the property without their permission.
The first company later sued Florine Clark in an attempt to void that declaration.
Clark told Gothamist she doesn’t recall signing anything. Attorneys for both LLCs did not respond to requests for comment.
Lauri McBride lives next door.
Ben Feuerherd / Gothamist
Kohanowski, the housing attorney, said the document may have been the work of “predatory investors,” who search for so-called “heirs property” — real estate that has no clear owner after a death.
“These predatory investors come out of the woodwork. They approach family members who don't necessarily know the value of the property or how to manage an estate after someone who has died.”
While the ownership battle has played out, neighbors say the brownstone’s residents have included a group calling itself a church, a man who was evicted by city marshals, and the current residents.
No one answered the door at the address on Tuesday, but John McBride, the neighbor, said he saw one of the residents who was arrested back at the house that day.
“I just saw him right now, and I know it was one of the guys who was taken away in handcuffs,” he said.
Tagged
park slope
housing
brooklyn
public safety
Ben Feuerherd
Ben Feuerherd covers public safety and policing for WNYC and Gothamist. He previously covered federal courts for The New York Post and The Messenger. His work has also appeared in POLITICO, the Daily Beast and NBC New York. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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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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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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