Tenants fearful over sale of hip hop's home on Sedgwick Ave.

BY TANYANIKA SAMUELS

The deal is done.

The west Bronx apartment complex dubbed the Birthplace of Hip Hop was sold last week to real estate developer Mark Karasick for a reported $7 million.

The apartment complex rose to fame in August 1973 after DJ Kool Herc, aka Clive Campbell, and his sister threw a house party that gave rise to the now popular music genre and culture.

A bitter fight between the owner and tenants ensued to preserve 1520 Sedgwick Ave. as affordable housing fizzled out after a recent state Supreme Court decision cleared the way for the sale of the 100-unit apartment building.

Alarmed tenants and housing advocates now fear that either their rents will skyrocket to cover the sale price or that the building conditions will deteriorate.

"Either [Karasick's] going to have to get rid of the tenants to raise rent so he can get his investment back or he'll get into trouble financially and not be able to operate the building," predicted Dina Levy of UHAB, a nonprofit group working with the tenants.

But Karasick's attorney, Steven Holm, called those concerns unfounded. Any future rent increases must comply with rent stabilization rules, so there's little room for rapid hikes, he said.

Tenants fearful over sale of hip hop's home on Sedgwick Ave....

BRONX BIRTHPLACE OF HIP HOP SAVED

An apartment building in the Bronx where hip hop pioneer DJ Kool Herc got his start behind the ones and twos has been deemed eligible to be listed on national and state registers of historic sites, reports the AP.

The decision by the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development also prevents the building's owner from going through with plans to leave an affordable housing program and sell the building to a developer, which would have sent tenant rents soaring up to market rate.

Last year, tenants reached out to DJ Kool Herc after receiving word that the owner planned to abandon Mitchell-Lama, a program that offers building owners incentives such as low-rate mortgages and tax breaks in exchange for charging tenants low to moderate rents for a certain period of time.

Sen. Charles Schumer on Monday said the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development rejected the proposed sale to a developer because current rents could not be sustained if the sale had gone through, reports the AP.

The New York Democrat said: "This building, which housed hip-hop's founding father ... is a New York treasure that must be preserved as a bastion of affordable housing."

During the 1970s, Kool Herc began sowing the seeds of hip hop as a DJ for parties held in the building's recreation room.