Legal Aid Demands City Save Bed-Stuy United Order Of Tents Mansion

BED-STUY, BROOKLYN — The Legal Aid Society is calling on the city to help save a historic secret society's Bed-Stuy headquarters, according to a statement released Monday.

The legal group calls for the Department of Finance to grant the United Order of Tents exemption from real estate tax, following a report in Curbed that details the group's confusing real estate tax status.

Doing so would help preserve an integral part of Black history in the neighborhood, said Jacques David, senior staff attorney in the Community Development Project at The Legal Aid Society, who has been working with the Tents to save their building.

“If the United Order of Tents were to lose their Brooklyn headquarters, it would be an even greater loss to the community since the Tents would be unable to continue their work of providing mutual aid to the residents of Bedford-Stuyvesant, it would also be detrimental to the work of preserving African American cultural heritage in New York City," he said in a statement.

The messy tax issues goes back to 2011, when the historic organization — which has roots dating back to the Underground Railroad — sold the back half of its headquarters' to cover repair costs, Curbed reported. But the lot was incorrectly subdivided in the sale and the group ended up being erroneously charged with the tax bills for condos that went up, according to the report.

The extraordinary tax bill also complicates their efforts to make repairs, as Patch reported last month.

According to the city's zoning map, which shows the two distinct tax lots, and property records, the back lot known as either 200 or 196 Macon Street was sold in 2012 for $760,000 to MGSH Properties. The deed includes a lot description.

The Department of Buildings records show the two lots as being possibly linked.

Since then, a five-story building with 28 units has been built via the 421-a tax abatement program, giving the property — where the most recent listing rented for $4,500 a month — an annual tax bill of around $7,000.

The current outstanding property taxes for 87 MacDonough St. are $447,129, according to DOF records, with its 2023 tax bill sitting at over $70,000.

In 2015, Curbed writes that the building was almost lost to the city's tax lien sale.

Working with a Legal Aid lawyer, the Tents filed — and were granted — non-profit status with the IRS, according to Curbed, but the city's DOF has shown a reluctance to grant a similar tax exemption.

After the city finance officials demanded detailed records of the building's use, the city sent an assessor to examine the property, the Curbed report states.

Last week, the Tents received notice from the city that tax exemption wouldn't be granted, according to Curbed.

"Despite the federal tax exemption, the DOF has denied the United Order of the Tents' exemption from real property tax because the agency erroneously believes the building at 87 MacDonough Street to be vacant, even after Legal Aid attorneys established otherwise," Legal Aid wrote in a statement.

The building is in need of $250,000 of repairs to be able to be safely used, said Essie Gregory, President of the United Order of Tents Eastern District 3.

Last month, Gregory told Patch that the Tents plan to renovate and preserve the place of the Tents in Black history in Bed-Stuy, and has launched a fundraising effort.

“The United Order of Tents has been a beacon of light in Bedford-Stuyvesant for more than 75 years," said Gregory in a release, "that light has flickered at times, but it has never been extinguished!"

"We are not new to challenging circumstances or hardship; our organization was founded in the crucible of slavery and thrived during the Jim Crow era," Gregory said, "we are working tirelessly so that our organization remains a ‘tent of refuge’ for decades to come. That is why the Department of Finance must approve our application for real property tax exemption.”