The Union of Pinnacle Tenants: A Short History of NYC Housing*

This is CIA. Seia Weaver. Some, like the New York Post, prefer oddball, >> but I like to call myself a tenant organizer. >> She is the director of the mayor's office to protect tenants. She's here to tell us a story about one of the worst landlords in New York City. >> There are more than 5,000 open hazardous violations and 14,000 complaints >> and how [music] they pissed off the wrong group of tenants. Pinnacle tenants refused to accept this cycle of [music] neglect. That swelling sound became a symphony and from it emerged a union of pinnacle tenants. >> New York City is home to nearly 1 million rentstabilized apartments and Josie Wells lives in one of them. My building has been around since like 1931, I believe. I pretty much like grew up in that building. It's a six-story building in Flatbush. So, my apartment, it's it's beautiful, but it needs repairs. There's a hole in the floor. And among other things, the former landlords, they didn't take care of it. >> Her former landlord is known as Pinnacle Group. >> Pinnacle owns thousands and thousands of apartments in New York City. They're one of the largest rentstabilized landlords in New York. Because I grew up in the building, I have like memories of the building being clean, garbage being taken out when it was supposed to be taken out. And you know, we had things like Christmas decorations in the lobby. So, this notion that people who live in stabilized buildings can't have these amenities, I think is crazy, but it's also erroneous because we did have it. And so Josie began a conversation with her neighbor [music] which became two. Two became many. And before long the tenants of 93 perfectly ordinary buildings realized an unusual pattern. They were living in perfectly unordinary conditions. >> There was actual ice forming in the bathroom. >> Suddenly the gas stop start stop start stop start stop start stop start stop start stop start stop start stop start stop start stop start stopped leaking by here. So like it caught fire. I'm still waiting for the the stove. >> And I've been having some ongoing issues with my water. It's been coming out brown. >> So, there's been like a perpetual leak in the ceiling. >> And this ceiling here fell disgusted, roaches, rats. They'll come out the ceiling. [music] Scared me half to death. >> And so, the tenants started using a word, >> Lord. Many of the tenants that I've gotten to know in my over a decade of tenant organizing in New York City have described Pinnacle Realy as a slum [music] lord. In the late '90s, CEO Joel Winer started buying up rent regulated apartments across NYC. Despite a growing list of lawsuits alleging tenant harassment, illegal evictions, [music] and other housing violations, the numbers told a rather different story. Between 2001 and 2017, Winer's wealth grew by more than 700%. >> Pinnacle Realy [music] owns tens of thousands of apartments in New York City and manage over $2 billion worth in [music] real estate. >> But to understand Pinnacle, you first have to understand the rent protections that generations of New Yorkers fought to win. >> We need direct action to protect tenants from harassment and eviction. After World War I, New York found itself in an unusual predicament. Too many people and too few apartments. With slowed construction and demands soaring, landlords, ever attentive to opportunity, began raising rents. And tenants were not delighted. [music] They organized rent strikes and protests, prompting the state to launch an investigation into the peculiar circumstances behind [music] the city's housing crisis. The result was New York's first emergency rent laws in [music] 1920. But the victory was temporary. As the emergency laws expired and political support for regulation faded, New York's first experiment with rent [music] regulation came to an end. Two decades later, another war and another housing shortage [music] brought rent control back. And when those protections began to fracture in the 1960s, waves of tenants hit the streets once again, leading to the creation of rent stabilization in [music] 1969. >> This administration uh believes strongly that we must have rent control in the city of New York. >> By the '90s, nearly half of New York City apartments were rent stabilized. But it wouldn't take long for the real estate lobby to start fighting [music] back. >> Between 1997 and 2019, rent stabilized tenants in New York City were under attack. George Pataki and a powerful landlord lobby were successful at putting loopholes into our rent stabilization system that were causing it to disappear. >> Loopholes that rewarded a very specific strategy. >> Speculative landlords were buying buildings, [music] reducing maintenance, and evicting tenants, all with one goal, bringing the buildings out of rent stabilization and up to the market rate. Landlords who want to tear down rent control buildings and replace them with high-rise expensive luxury buildings are employing private relocation specialists to do the evicting. >> That's a business model that Pinnacle Realy was exploiting [music] and it's a business model that tenants organized and came together to make impossible in 2019. >> I'm proud to say that the housing stability and tenant protection act represents an enormous progress [music] toward fundamental fairness for every New Yorker who rents their home. >> The bill is passed. It is long overdue that we finally pass a rent bill that repeals the deregulatory policies that for so long have harmed rent regulated tenants. >> This complicated things for Pinnacle. >> After years of deferred maintenance and attempts to raise the rent, Pinnacle went into bankruptcy [music] on a set of about 5,000 apartments in Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens in 2024. >> That's when the tenants stepped in. And I was freaking out because I'm like, I don't want them to just come in here and just do what >> whatever, right? Drip paint everywhere. >> And I was like, tell me exactly what work you're going to do today. [laughter] Tell me exactly. >> They're just like, why is like getting the the thing part of their struggle? >> That's so funny. >> They don't take our voices seriously. [laughter] They know it's like ah you should be happy take what you get >> right >> and it's like no we deserve dignity and nice things >> I love nice things >> me too lobby >> association association to come join >> and so what we [music] want to do is demonstrate right that we do indeed have strength in numbers tough. I get to speak to many of you just on an individual basis. It's tough for me and I know it's tough for you [music] and we need we need some relief. So, >> it was just this spark like all of these like TAs were just popping up. But it was like September 23rd. At that point, we were having like our weekly meetings. We had reached a point where it [music] was time to formally turn this movement that we had started into a union. >> Y [screaming] [laughter] >> we're going to do like several more minutes. >> Okay. Cuz we have some special guests anti-poverty [clears throat] organizers coming all the way from Tokyo. um they have wanted to sit on um our meeting today to see kind of how UPT runs business and how Bob Bush runs business in Tokyo. Uh rent is uh more higher and higher and uh minimum wage is only $7 per hour. More and more people lose their apartment. It is really inspiring for me to see the energy and and how active you guys are and yeah so thank you for inviting us. Yeah. Thank you. [applause] >> And then Pinnacle Group went to sell its portfolio of 5,100 rentstabilized apartments to Summit Properties, trading one set of problems for a new set of promises. >> Let's talk about Pinnacle. They ended up declaring bankruptcy. That leaves the tenants in a very precarious place. >> What's the administration's approach to that going to be? >> So, we want to ensure that whoever is taking on this portfolio is able to comply with both rent stabilization laws as well as the housing maintenance [music] code. Summit Properties is new to the New York City market, but they own residential real estate all over the world. They became the top bidder in the Pinnacle bankruptcy [music] case and became the new owner of the Pinnacle portfolio on April 1st, 2026. >> The tenants wanted to stop the sale. They had seen this before. They wrote letters to the bankruptcy judge and demanded to be taken into consideration and unusually they were. >> Today marks 1 month since I swore my oath to become mayor of New York City and also one month since I stood alongside many of you to make clear that no longer would city halls just sit idly by as tenants were mistreated across this city. And what I want to do is chart a new course from city hall. One where every New Yorker is treated with dignity. Where every New Yorker has the right to live in a safe and habitable [music] home. And that is exactly what we did on that first day. And when we took office, the sale was already deep into the bankruptcy [music] process. So we asked for the sale to Summit Properties to be postponed because it was not clear whether the new owner would fare any better than the old owner when it came to actually living up to the standards of the law. And while that request was denied, our intervention did lead to the new buyer making important commitments. The new owner of these apartments has committed to $30 million in repairs and rectifying the violations. [applause] For the first time, tenants would sit across from their new landlord, Summit Properties, to [music] make their demands heard. We had the opportunity to let all [music] of our concerns be known. We managed to be very clear, very precise, and we now have no doubts that Strada, Summit, New Amsterdam, and OM know where the union stands and where the tenant stands. >> Up. While Summit Properties has yet to recognize the UPT as a formal bargaining unit, it has however agreed to forgive millions of dollars in back rent [music] from before the sale. >> Really, just everyone should feel so proud of the like work that they did advocating for themselves and their neighbors. >> You know, [music] home is so fundamental to everyone's day-to-day lives. If you don't have a safe and a stable and affordable home, it is difficult to hold down [music] a job. It's difficult to get a good education. and it's difficult to stay healthy. >> This came together, you know, as a result of grit and [music] determination and this was a grassroots effort. I like to describe this [music] phase of our movement as the introduction >> up. >> There's like an awakening happening, you know, and it's absolutely beautiful. [music] So, yeah, it's a star. It's a spark. The spark [laughter] Mayor [music] Maldonni has been laser focused on housing policy and tenant protection. He has already signed an executive order that directs city agencies to hold rental ripoff hearings. And this is only the beginning of our work to transform the housing landscape [music] and the lives of tenants across New York. >> We just put a plan called BlockbyBlock. was our housing plan that we've put forward where we're going to be building 200,000 new affordable homes over the next 10 years and preserving 200,000 existing affordable homes that are in a potential state of disrepair. >> Mayor Mumdani and a coalition of city and community leaders [music] announced a new housing initiative that they say will offer stability and second chances. >> When it comes to housing, the binary we face is not between structures and people. It is between a government that debates and a government that delivers. >> Today, Mayor Mani announcing the city has been awarded [music] a record $31 million in civil penalties from two Bronx landlords. [music] >> We don't have to choose between new housing and tenant protection, between incentivizing private market housing and preserving public [music] housing. >> That legacy of abandonment ends today. >> The story of housing in New York City is a long and bumpy one. But throughout our city's history, some of the more remarkable changes have happened when ordinary tenants like Josie and her neighbors [music] come together to demand a safe, decent place to call home. Because in the end, a home is not defined by a deed or [music] a lease, but by those who live in it. [music] >> [music]