Don’t you love it when people try to make learning cool? Like, they’ll say, “So this one angel had a total ‘fuck you’ attitude and God was all, ‘Fuck this guy man. He’s outta here.’ Next thing you know motherfucker’s kicked out of heaven and starts up his own shit. He changes his name to Satan and calls his new pad ‘Hell.’”
You thought you were getting the skinny on some biker dudes but oops! You just learned about the beginning of Heaven and Hell.
Well, we don’t usually talk about the boundaries of New York real estate law so we’re going to try cooling it up. Here goes…
So, there’s this real rich Greek dude named Alistair Economakis who owns this crazy ass kick ass East Vill pad (47 East 3rd Street) that is D-O-O-O-O-P-E. Brah, has mad dolla dolla bills yo, so he’s decided he wants to take over the building, kick out the tenants and make the whole enchilada into his 60-room Super mega pad, complete with library, nanny zone, gym… New York Magazine did a thing about it where they were basically like, “So what? If you want to make your building into a fancy house then do it!” Some even said paying $640 a month in New York was too good to last and these people should’ve known they were going to get fucked at some point. Most were supsicious of the move and just thought dude was doing a fakie front side ollie so he could get all the rent controllers out of there. Crazy protests were going down and bugging Alistair out of his crotch, so he started this website where he tried to defend himself. It looked like things were going about 50/50 until his cousin sent this letter to the press.
Dear (journalists name):
New York landlord Alistair Economakis’s fight to rid the five-story tenement on 47 East Third Street of its tenants has disturbed me, but it hasn’t surprised me. That’s because I have known Alistair’s family for many years now. You see, I have the misfortune of being his first—and eldest—cousin.
Alistair was always a rich brat. I remember once, in some village in southern Greece, he stuck his five-year-old head out of his father’s—my uncle’s—car, and, encouraged by his guffawing dad, shouted insults at elderly women, calling them “hags”. I nearly slapped my little cousin’s face for that. I regret now I didn’t.
The apple doesn’t usually fall far from the tree. My uncle Alexander (Alistair’s father) is a philandering old playboy who idolizes the worst in America—including the robber barons of the 19th century. Back in 2005, when I first learned of the scandal brewing in New York around the Economakis name, I asked my uncle if it was true Alistair was trying to evict people from the building in the East Village. His answer, word-for-word, was: “Yes, and good for him—most of the tenants are Jews anyway. He’ll make a killing when he sells the building.”
Shocked? You shouldn’t be. It’s almost impossible to be filthy rich and not be a rotten scoundrel inside. After all, behind most great fortunes lies a crime. But Alistair and his wife Catherine Economakis (who is much wealthier than my cousin, and is the real force behind the scenes) will reap what they’ve sown. Their crime will come back—again and again, for as long as they live—to haunt them. Of this I haven’t the slightest doubt.
My cousin, who grew up in Greece and England, wraps himself in the American flag and evokes the U.S. Constitution to “justify” his family’s need to live in 60 rooms, in a 11,000-square-foot home. I’ve read the popular outcry, the indignant outrage. Yet what do people expect from the likes of my cousin and his wife? Crying “shame!” or noting the irony in the fact that Alistair’s mother-in-law is a Columbia University dean who teaches urban studies, of all things, is an exercise in futility. I can assure you they aren’t at all fazed by such criticism.
So many good people bemoan the legal ruling allowing the eviction to take place. This is naïve. Who makes the laws, after all? The government does. And what is the government but the representative of a country’s ruling class? What do low-income tenants expect from the enemy, after all?
Yet what goes around tends to come around. You can spit on the collective—as Alistair and Cathy Economakis have done, but it’s quite another thing when the collective turns around and spits on you!
Low income tenants of New York! Run the Economakises—and all human lice like them—out of town! Turn their “American dream”—a dream at your expense—into a real nightmare! Give them no quarter! Make it physically and psychologically impossible for them to evict you! Send THEM packing!
Evel G. Economakis,
Athens, Greece
-So what do you little dudes think, is he awesome off the chains or gnarly with a spoon?
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STREET BONER 1127
Being straight edge as a kid is a great way to rebel against: puking, getting pregnant, and wrapping your parent’s car around a tree.
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Awesome. And too true about the shit and representation of the ruling class… If there’s one thing I’ve gleaned from Property law classes (ahem.. sorry, yes I am a law student) it’s that oftentimes the public policy behind certain court decisions is: “Protecting the haves from the have-nots.” So many instances reiterate the principle: courts rely on written documents and lord knows rich people will talk to lawyers who will always tell them to deal in writing only; estate law, one big behemoth of feudalism’s heyday, was all about keeping the power in the moneyed; at this point I’ll etc etc. But shyeah dude. Totally.
09.22.08 at 1:51 pm
Rich people can do anything they want. ANYTHING. if they wanna murder little girls and make a suit out of their skin, they can do that, they just have to do it on a boat in international waters. Our country runs on this (capitalism). If rich people can’t do whatever they want, what’s the point of being rich? More importantly, what’s the point of trying to GET rich if you know you won’t be able to do anything you want once you get enough money?
Oh this system is so terrible! What can we do to see that justice is done? I guess we could vote, that always seems to work out pretty good for us.
09.22.08 at 2:10 pm
how is this surprising in NYC? the haves have taken over everything. the guy owns the building, and I am sure his funds and means will make it his in the end. fight the good fight but those people are screwed.
09.22.08 at 2:13 pm
This reminds me of the Onion article about gentrified neighborhoods threatened with “aristocratization.” (www.theonion.com/content/news/report_nations_gentrified)
Is gentrification endemic to our market economy, or are there examples of legal/political solutions to the process, either here or abroad?
09.22.08 at 2:24 pm
What the fuck is the problem? If the guy owns the building he can do whatever the hell he wants with it. Rich douche aside, it’s still his property.
09.22.08 at 2:37 pm
“Evel G. Economakis”
09.22.08 at 2:59 pm
Off the hooks.
09.22.08 at 4:42 pm
I’d burn the fucking thing to the ground.
09.22.08 at 4:46 pm
Niggy’s got a point.
09.22.08 at 5:49 pm
Why doesn’t someone just burn the thing down. problem solved.
09.22.08 at 6:08 pm
fuck the have nots – if you wanted affordable housing you wouldn’t live in NYC dickheads.
09.22.08 at 7:17 pm
I disagree Narcs. Yes the rent in NYC is high — but NYC also offers some of the best protection for tenants against money hungry developers. So sorry Niggy – it’s not as simple as “he owns the building, he can do what he wants with it” (thank god). That’s why we have rent laws and tenants rights in NYC – so that the rule of law doesn’t come down to “he with the most cash is always right” (though the rich are hard to beat in court). But take heart — these guys can be beaten — especially if you are willing to do some research and to fight. The owners of our last building (a place my wife had lived and put cash into for 15 years) tried to toss us out quick, so they could turn the building around. but we got a good lawyer, dug in our heals and they ended up having to pay us big buck to move. Granted, the lawyer took a fourth of it, and the IRS another fourth. But we still were left with a pretty penny, and we left those fuckers licking their wounds. It is harder to evict someone in this city, than they want you to know.
09.22.08 at 8:14 pm
haha his name is actually economakis?
09.22.08 at 10:46 pm
no, his name is evictiamakolos
09.23.08 at 2:48 am
I can’t believe he’s rich and greek and his name is Econo-makis. Thats hilarious. Its like if there were a famous german nihilist philosopher named Heinz Hoogivzaschmidt, and that was actually the dude’s real name.
09.23.08 at 5:03 am
i don’t know what everyone’s complaining about. his daddy said that all the other tenants were jews.
09.23.08 at 8:28 am
This is America, holmes. It’s his building, let him do what he wants. It’s totally his right. Likewise, people(including his cousin) can excercise they’re free speech to say he’s mean. That’s the beauty of this country. Remember in Ghostbusters 2 when they ask the mayor to ask everyone to be nice to each other and the mayor is all “it’s every New Yorker’s right to be an asshole.” Word life.
09.23.08 at 9:46 am
You really can’t do exactly what you want to real estate, property codes and zoning laws insure that property isn’t really free like people might want to believe it is.
09.23.08 at 10:05 am
capitalism has its downside but it wouldn’t be capitalism without its downside
well it’s unchecked and exponential “growth” that’s inherently dangerous but we overlook that aspect and pay attention instead to rich asshole who displace jewish tenants in nyc
09.23.08 at 11:06 am
I don’t know how the law works in NY, but here in CA, in most rent-controlled buildings, you have the right to evict if you or a family member wants to move in or you want to make substantial improvements on it. For legal nerds, here’s the way the law works in SF, http://www.sftu.org/ellis.html
So yeah, if herschel heebasaurus lived in SF, all the schwartzers would be back where they belong, (Stockton or Sacramento).
09.23.08 at 12:15 pm
What an intriguing tale of greedy, self-centered, ruthless Greeks and cheap Jews desperately clinging to a good deal to the bitter end. I bet there’s even a sub-plot that involves serial ass fucking and pots of soup made from the flesh of angelic Christian boys and girls.
Geaux fuk yerself whitey!
09.23.08 at 4:42 pm
whoa greeks and jews have something in common?!
09.24.08 at 9:34 am
You people are sickening bunch of liberal faggots that should all be shot immediately. Of course it’s his right to do what he wants with it, no matter what kind of asshole he is. The problem here is liberal socialist bullshit laws that are completely fucking unreasonable. Some fucking losers live in his building under rental control (a completely absurd idea in the first place) – he should be able to charge market value for rent on his building. But instead the worthless government worthless liberals are making him rent for pennies on the dollar. He sees he can’t make a fair business out of this property so figures “fuck it I’ll have a mansion.” But now he can’t even do that? With rent controls so absurd the building is probably operating at a loss and the real value of the property is seriously undermined. Fuck all of you people, you are what is wrong with the world.
02.28.09 at 6:15 pm