NYC's 100 Worst Landlords: The Full 2016 List

NEW YORK, NY — Public Advocate Letitia James put 100 of the city's worst landlords on blast Thursday when she dropped her annual, highly anticipated list of the 100 Worst Landlords in New York City. The vast majority of landlords on the list each own a handful of buildings around the city — many in multiple boroughs.

The landlords are ranked from worst (No. 1) to least-worst (No. 100), based on the total number of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) violations and Department of Buildings (DOB) violations at each of the properties they own.

"Apartments free of mold, vermin, rodents and harassment aren't luxuries," James said on Twitter. "These are basic rights that no tenant should be denied."

At the top of this year's Worst Landlords list is Harry D. Silverstein. Silverstein is a regular on the list: He finished No. 2 in 2015. He owns eight buildings — one in the Bronx, two in Queens and five in Brooklyn — which accumulated a total of 2,032 HPD violations and 50 DOB violations.

A cursory review of some of Silverstein's properties on the HPD website reveals a laundry list of complaints by tenants. The worst building by number of violations is 39-30 59th Street in Woodside, Queens — with 365 total violations. Currently open violations at the Queens building include roaches, mold, missing smoke detectors and leaky ceilings.

At 3971 Gouverneur Ave. in the Bronx, a building also owned by Silverstein, there are 250 violations, including currently open violations for mice, roaches, leaky faucets, broken locks and water dripping from ceilings. Violations are broken down by Class A, Class B and three types of Class C violations; the classes indicate how much time a landlord has to address the violation. Silverstein racked up 38 Class C violations — the worst category — in that one Bronx building alone.

No one was picking up the phone at any of the Silverstein properties we called Thursday, including 3971 Gouverneur.

Ved Parkash, who took top "honors" on James' list in 2015, fell to No. 5 this year. He had more than 2,200 violations in his buildings last year; that number was down to 992 HPD violations and 28 DOB violations this year.

“The Landlord Watchlist is a critically-important resource for tenants, advocates and elected official,” Mayor Bill de Blasio, who started the annual list as Public Advocate in 2010, said in a statement. “It helps us enforce our laws and, ultimately, ensure that landlords provide the safe and decent homes New Yorkers are entitled to. Public Advocate James has done an excellent job as she focuses on and improves this tool, and I look forward to continue working with her as we protect affordable housing throughout our City.”

The Top 100 Worst Landlords and Number of HPD and BOD violations:

1. Harry D. Silverstein — 2,032/50
2. Allan Goldman — 1,193/15
3. Efstathios Valiotis — 1,077/64
4. Martin Kirzner — 1,036/23
5. Ved Parkash — 992/28
6. [Removed by Public Advocate]
7. Michael Niamonitakis — 936/13
8. Felix Gomez — 939/3
9. Rawle Isaacs — 869/22
10. Joel Kohn — 823/33
11. Iskyo Aronov — 789/30
12. Larry Hirschfield — 793/5
13. David David — 782/5
14. Bruce Haley — 769/14
15. Isaac Schwartz — 768/10
16. Joseph Hoffman — 753/9
17. Jonathan Cohen — 718/43
18. Jay Miller — 739/0
19. Adam Stryker — 715/9
20. Zev Salomon — 713/4
21. Joel Goldstein — 667/29
22. Marc Chemtob — 655/37
23. Meir Fried — 680/10
24. Martin Baumrind — 673/6
25. Mark Tress — 650/14
26. Yosef Emergi — 627/25
27. David Baron — 626/19
28. Moshe Deutsch — 539/99
29. Eleanor Patrick — 608/27
30. Nick Gazivoda — 631/0
31. Richard Nussbaum — 617/10
32. Narsinh Desai — 606/20
33. Rubin Dukler — 583/1
34. Solomon Gottlieb — 570/8
35. Avraham Tarshish — 564/12
36. Getz Obstfeld — 547/5
37. Nazila Bardi — 537/7
38. Seth A. Miller — 509/33
39. Uzy Stein — 532/6
40. Richard Liriano — 520/15
41. Douglas Rosenberg — 529/4
42. Deodat Lowtan — 516/13
43. Thomas Steiner — 521/8
44. Joseph Teichman — 506/20
45. Ari Friedman — 514/8
46. Steven E. Breitman — 514/3
47. Joseph Cook — 484/1
48. Robert Raphael — 446/30
49. Jacob Gold — 465/10
50. Jason M. Green — 472/3
51. Nasir Sasouness — 473/0
52. Robert Kaszovitz — 453/9
53. Ron Nahum — 447/11
54. Kamran Hakim — 453/2
55. Robert Villatta — 425/23
56. Robert Kaydanian — 435/9
57. Ronald J. Swartz — 442/0
58. Cheryl Ighodaro — 435/4
59. Kobi Zamir — 400/34
60. Bashkim Celaj — 429/3
61. Jay Deutchman — 418/6
62. Mordechai G. Piller — 409/12
63. John K. Zi — 399/19
64. Saruhan Capin — 410/6
65. Jair Gutierrez — 393/21
66. Zalmen Wagschal — 385/29
67. Moshe Mehlman — 411/0
68. Iris Nieves — 406/3
69. Chaim Goldberger — 399/4
70. Elaine M. Gorlechen — 401/1
71. Malina Nealis — 393/7
72. David Green — 385/14
73. Henry Camuso — 393/3
74. David Siegel — 382/13
75. Barry Hers — 372/21
76. Joseph Jemal — 388/5
77. Michael Khodadadian — 383/10
78. Robert Farhadian — 380/8
79. Zahava Kadosh — 382/6
80. Richard Lagana — 346/36
81. Felicia Colon — 373/8
82. Abe Green — 363/12
83. Laurence Gluck — 361/14
84. Joel Rolnitzky — 368/2
85. Bita Sassouni — 360/9
86. Hillel Weinberger — 351/18
87. Steven Katz — 365/4
88. Charles Alpert — 359/5
89. Robert D. Gojcaj — 361/3
90. Jean Saint-Cyr — 360/0
91. David Sutton — 342/17
92. Abe Peters — 353/1
93. Alfred Sayegh — 344/9
94. Rich Laubsch — 346/7
95. Jason Korn — 349/1
96. Amanda Reyes — 338/8
97. Mendel Gold — 300/44
98. Ephraim Landau — 335/4
99. Joseph Emile — 336/2
100. David Bowen — 333/3

Click here to see a map and addresses of all the properties they own.

Photo Credit: 3971 Gouverneur Ave. in the Bronx via Google Maps Street View