“I had a lady crying because her dog went into one of the empty apartments, and she chased it in and finds two girls and four guys in the apartment, and the one guy was smoking a crack pipe. She couldn’t sleep all night, because she was afraid they’d think she called the cops on them,” the former super said.

After HPD officials began visiting the building regularly, Mr. Rubin brought in a new super to begin addressing the mountain of violations the Majestic had accumulated.

The building has been humming nearly all day for the last few weeks, with contractors working under the direction of the new super, who is a long-time employee of Mr. Rubin’s.

But Mr. Sandler, of Councilman Koppell’s office, and tenants said the repair efforts are almost exclusively focused on currently vacant apartments, which the landlord will be looking to rent with the Manhattan College school year fast approaching.

“He’ll do just what’s required, he’ll do the bare minimum,” Mr. Sandler said of Mr. Rubin. “On the outside, the building looks pretty good, he maintains a good appearance, but when you get inside it falls apart. He’ll tell the supers to mop the hallways and make everything look new, just to create the perception that everything’s alright.”

Mr. Rubin said it’s unfair to say that he won’t do enough to fix his building.

“The councilman is not right, he is doing bad. Anybody who lets me know they have a problem, I’ll fix,” Mr. Rubin said.

However, Dottie, whose rent-controlled apartment  has a leaky kitchen faucet, said she’s not expecting Mr. Rubin to pay for fixes to her place any time soon.

After waiting months to have it repaired, she said the super came last weekend. 

“I was told ‘oh, we’re going to do this we’re going to do that’ and 24 hours later he came back and — hold on to your hat — he told me, ‘the landlord said that you’re rent control and he’s not doing anything,” she said.