NY Dirt: The making of a real estate villain

On a cold January day, public advocate Jumaane Williams gathered TV cameras to Woodruff Avenue in Brooklyn.

The press conference was for the reveal of Williams’ “Worst Landlord List,” but he was there in Prospect Park South to shame one particular landlord, A&E Real Estate Holdings. Two of the firm’s executives had topped his list, ranked by open housing code violations across their buildings.

Since then, A&E and its founder Douglas Eisenberg haven’t left the crosshairs of the city’s tenant advocacy coalition. A&E has become something of a stand-in for “bad” landlords and has gained a fair amount of public attention.

On Tuesday, the group Housing Rights Initiative announced a suit against three A&E affiliates, alleging that the company engaged in a “wrongful scheme” to deregulate rent-stabilized units and illegally raise rents. The plaintiffs, residents in five Queens buildings, argue that no substantial work was conducted on their units to justify the boosts in legal rents their units received.

“The fraudulent overcharges uncovered by this investigation represent yet another example of this landlord’s already demonstrated pattern of flagrant disregard for tenants’ right law, and HRI is determined to play a role in continuing to hold A&E accountable for their abuses,” Housing Rights Initiative wrote in a release. The group also said it would continue investigating A&E’s portfolio.

A&E responded by taking aim at Roger Sachar, the attorney at Newman Ferrara who filed the suit.

“Roger Sachar has been unsuccessfully suing A&E-managed buildings for ten years and has gotten absolutely nowhere with them,” a spokesperson for A&E said in a statement .“He is an opportunist who seeks to profit off his clients while blanketing owners of rent-stabilized properties with lawsuits backed by absurd claims.”

Eisenberg previously told The Real Deal that the firm has invested $10 million into 34-15 Parsons Boulevard, one of the buildings at issue in the suit.

That’s not all. Just days before Williams put Eisenberg at the top of the worst landlords list, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced a $2.1 million settlement with A&E to “address tenant harassment and hazardous conditions across 14 buildings.” (Although announced and championed by Mamdani, the settlement was almost certainly worked out during the Adams administration.)

And to further bolster Eisenberg’s public profile, The New York Times Magazine, in a lengthy story about rent-stabilized housing, made him its stand-in for the city’s landlords. Theirs was a more sympathetic portrayal of Eisenberg than Mamdani’s.

“After 2019, we spent a lot of time trying to tinker with our model to try to figure out a way to make it work,” Eisenberg told the Times. “I think what you’ve seen is that it’s impossible to make it work. The math is just the math.”

I was there at Williams’ press conference and joined his staff and other reporters in the basement of the building in Prospect Park South, where we saw dead roaches and rat droppings.

A spokesperson for A&E said the firm has invested $850 million in its portfolio. However, it seemed obvious to me that there were indeed some problems at the building. The question is then who to blame. Tenant advocates, including director of the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants Cea Weaver, blame landlords themselves. Landlords like A&E blame the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019, which closed avenues to increase rents in stabilized apartments.

“What Eisenberg sees as a virtuous circle — upgrading buildings, raising rents, increasing property values,” the Times wrote in its story, “Weaver sees as a vicious cycle that New York finally has the opportunity to break.”

What we’re thinking about: It’s been one year since the tragic shooting at Rudin Management’s 345 Park Avenue, where four people lost their lives. I wrote this week about the litigation that has followed the events. But how else has the impact of the tragedy reverberated throughout the industry and city? Send thoughts to lilah.burke@therealdeal.com

A thing we’ve learned: LeBron James could live in New York City and commute to Philadelphia via helicopter to play for the 76ers after the NBA star signed a two-year, $8 million contract with the team last week. If he does, James would follow in the footsteps of NBA Hall of Famer Wilt Chamberlain, who primarily lived in New York while playing with the Sixers.

— Spencer Davis

Elsewhere…

— The West Harlem Community Preservation Organization sued the city to block a 200-unit affordable housing development in Hamilton Heights they say could displace a community health center, Crain’s reports. The City Council approved the project, known as Hill Top Apartments, in March 2026, but the clinic does not have the funds to relocate, according to the lawsuit.

— Mayor Zohran Mamdani is standing by his comments about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after Netanyahu accused him of “fomenting hate” and making Jewish New Yorkers feel unsafe following the stabbing of a Jewish man and an Asian man on the Upper West Side last week, amNY reports. “I’m not interested in getting into a back and forth with Prime Minister Netanyahu,” Mamdani said. “What I will say is that here in New York City, one of my top priorities is keeping Jewish New Yorkers safe, keeping every single New Yorker safe.”

— Over 800 flights were canceled at major New York City airports Tuesday following threat of a severe thunderstorm that could bring five to seven inches of rainfall to New York City, New York Daily News reports. The National Weather Service has issued a flood watch for New York and parts of New Jersey through 8 p.m. Wednesday and the Federal Aviation Administration issued ground stops at JFK, LaGuardia and Newark due to staffing shortages.

— Spencer Davis

Closing time

Residential: The most expensive residential sale recorded Tuesday was $47 million for a 7,074-square-foot sponsor-sale condominium at 217 West 57th Street in Times Square North.

Commercial: The most expensive commercial transaction was $188 million for an eight-story, 400,000-square-foot life & sciences property at 125 West End Avenue in Lincoln Square. Taconic Partners sold the building to ABS Partners.

New to the Market: The highest price for a residential property hitting the market was $6.5 million for a 2,917-square-foot condominium at 61 North Moore Street in Tribeca. Brad Ingalls and Brendon O’Rourke with Sotheby’s International Realty have the listing.

Breaking Ground: The largest new building permit filed was for a proposed 369,603-square-foot, 828-unit mixed-use project at 243 East 125th Street in East Harlem. Paul Carr with S9 Architecture filed the permit on behalf of Kristen Miller of Richman Group Development.

— Matthew Elo