Lefferts Tenants Protest: Faulty Lock Among Many Dangerous Problems

CROWN HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN — Crown Heights tenants took to the streets outside their landlord's office Wednesday to demand vital fixes to building problems they say put lives at risk.

Residents of 501 Lefferts Ave. — a 60-unit apartment complex near Lamont Court — rallied one month after a delivery worker was beaten and robbed in their front vestibule, a crime they worry could have spilled into their hallways given defective locks on doors to access the rest of the building.

"I was very scared," said tenant Lakeysha Harris-Godwin, who heard the loud pop of a gunshot while getting her mother ready for bed and later watched as cops gathered outside her window. "That front door is not secured properly."

Protesters — including a half dozen tenants, a neighbor and Equality for Flatbush organizer Imani Henry, whose group sponsors the tenant association — gathered outside Dira Realty offices at 438 Kingston Ave. to raise these and other concerns, including a faulty elevator that at least once has opened onto an empty shaft.

"It was nothing — just space," said a resident named Kathy. "I called the super and I said, 'Listen, somebody is going to lose their life.'"

Harris-Godwin said the elevator has meant her mother, who uses a wheelchair, has missed medical appointments because the landlords arbitrarily close the basement, the only access point to the building's ramp.

More than a few times Harris-Godwin has gotten in the elevator to head out to a her mom's doctor's appointment only to find the basement sealed off, forcing her to head back upstairs and cancel a visit she already paid for, she said.

That is not to mention the times Harris-Godwin and other tenants have been stopped from heading downstairs because the elevator itself is out of service, which happens every few weeks, tenants say.

Building department records show Lefferts Realty LLC owes a $1,250 fine for failure to maintain the elevator. The fine for the "immediately hazardous" violation was issued in March and had yet to be paid as of June.

Tenants say building manager, currently Isaac Hager, has been ignoring their pleas for help for years, including rallies held as far back as 2018.

The Lefferts Avenue complex had 87 open violations with the Housing Preservation and Development department, including the broken locks, roach and mice infestations and water leaks as of Thursday, records show.

Landlords — whose address in property records is the Kingston Avenue office for company Dira Realty — have not responded to repeated messages from Patch, including one left in person on Wednesday.

During Wednesday's rally, an employee the firm sent to check on the 501 Lefferts Ave. building around the corner told Patch he found the front door secured.

Dira often sends locksmiths to 501 Lefferts Ave. and its other properties when young people break the locks to hang out in the lobby or hallways, according to another employee who cashes the invoices for the maintenance visits.

The company sends one of its four security guards to the building each time they are called for the broken front door, the employee said.

"There's only so much a landlord can do," said the employee, who refused to give her name. The employee said she could not speak to the other problems tenants brought up about the building.

But the maintenance visits are little solace to tenants who say the locks won't be secure until landlords replace the whole door, which is easily opened even when locks work properly. The door has been the same since Kathy moved in 40 years ago, she said.

"That door is absolutely outdated," Kathy told Patch. "They might change the lock, but the frame, they can kick it [open]."