Upper East Side Evictions Keep Climbing, With 27 Since August: Data

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — Months after evictions resumed in New York following a lengthy pandemic pause, the number of people and businesses being forced out on the Upper East Side has continued to climb, records show.

At least 56 households and businesses have been evicted on the Upper East Side since the start of 2022, according to data kept by the Department of Investigation.

That's more than double the number that had been recorded in the neighborhood from January through early August, when Patch first reported on the uptick, signaling that the pace has quickened in recent weeks. Of the 56 evictions, 28 have come since August.

Those evicted since Patch's last report include eight commercial tenants and 19 households.

The displaced businesses range from a beauty salon on Lexington Avenue near East 62nd Street to a former preschool based at the Synod of Bishops Russian Church on Park Avenue and East 93rd Street, which surrendered its space in August after being evicted by the church, court records show.

Recently evicted households, meanwhile, are spread throughout the neighborhood, from a 14th-floor tenant on East End Avenue to a fourth-story resident of East 81st Street who was evicted on Oct. 20, the records show.

The evictions come after the demise of New York's eviction moratorium, which state lawmakers allowed to expire in January after it had been on the books since March 2020.

As expected, evictions began to slowly ramp up in the early months of 2022, as City Limits first reported — though the true number is likely even higher than what the data shows, since city marshals sometimes take weeks to report an eviction after it has been carried out, and other, less formal evictions happen outside of court.

The total number of evictions, while up significantly from the near-zero recorded last year, still remains well below pre-pandemic levels. In 2017, for example, 211 evictions were carried out on the Upper East Side alone.

Among the problems facing tenants this year has been a shortage of lawyers to serve them — despite the city's landmark 2017 law guaranteeing an attorney to all tenants facing eviction, most eviction cases filed in 2022 were never assigned counsel, as THE CITY reported last week.

Besides hiring more lawyers, some advocates have called for the passage of new tenant protections like "Good Cause" eviction, a bill proposed by progressive state legislators that would mostly guarantee a right to lease renewal and cap annual rent increases.

Landlord groups have opposed the bill, saying it would impose burdensome costs that would prevent property owners from paying for repairs and renovations.