Shalom Aleichem owner will fight to stay

The Shalom Aleichem Houses are in foreclosure after owner Van Cortlandt Village LLC failed to make mortgage payments and could not negotiate a deal with New York Community Bank. But after the bank sold the mortgage note to Riverdale’s Chestnut Holdings, Van Cortlandt Village LLC revealed on Monday that it intends to hold onto the historic property.

“They will fight for this and make sure they don’t lose this,” Cathy Cabrera, a representatives of Van Cortlandt Village LLC, said. 

Because Van Cortlandt Village LLC is still in foreclosure proceedings, it has first dibs to pay back what it owes and continue to own and run the property. But news that it intends to do was not welcomed by some of the tenants. 

Since the company bought the 234-apartment 15-building complex between Giles Place, Sedgwick Avenue, Cannon Place and West 238th Street in 2007, residents say conditions have deteriorated, especially over the last few months. They have complained of no heat or hot water, a leaking roof, collapsing ceilings, crumbling walls and other dilapidated conditions. 

The building has hundreds of violations and five of the buildings were added to Public Advocate Bill de Blasio’s watchlist of the city’s worst landlords. When the building went into foreclosure, tenants restarted a tenants’ association after 20 years without one.

At their Monday night meeting, during which Van Cortlandt Village representatives said the company would fight to remain their landlord, tenants were also given their first opportunity to unleash three years of pent up frustration. 

“We are fed up to our eyeballs with Van Cortland Village,” Roberta Strugger, a tenants’ association leader, said.