Add The New York Post on Google City Hall danced on the grave of a dead Brooklyn landlord who left behind three derelict buildings with over 1,000 property violations – as Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s took credit for the effort as part of a crackdown of bad landlords of rent-stabilized buildings.
Mamdani took the victory lap in a press release Thursday, announcing the deceased Rubin Dukler’s neglected Crown Heights buildings were sold to a Mark Schwartz, who is planning to remedy the 88 units in close coordination with the Housing and Preservation Department.
“The tenants of the Dukler Tenant Union have suffered from neglect and disinvestment for years,” Mamdani said in a statement. “Today, a new chapter begins for these buildings.”
The Mamdani administration helped facilitate the sale of the building by utilizing the HPD’s Alternative Enforcement Program – which targets dilapidated buildings with severe violations. As a result the HPD will have to make emergency repairs at the properties.
One expert said the sale is a “genuine success story” for the buildings’ tenants – who have been organizing against Dukler for years – but warned the move signals Mamdani’s commitment to cracking down on private owners of rent-stabilized buildings.
“This is a clear signal from the Mamdani administration that chronic neglect is going to be met with escalating enforcement,” said real estate attorney and partner at BlankRome Massimo D’Angelo.
“And that the city is going to actively work to transfer ownership of these buildings and similar type buildings, you know, from non-compliant owners, and transfer them ultimately to set up tenant ownership,” he said.
Dukler – who was routinely featured on the Public Advocate’s “worst landlord’s list” – died in 2022, and had a history of open violations on his portfolio dating back to before 2002.
He sold a 50% stake in his portfolio to Iris Holdings Group for $6.2 million in 2017 – but the sale resulted in a years long legal battle over management and upkeep duties between the two entities, according to previous reporting by Curbed.
Following his death, tenants were left in limbo for nearly four years without a clear building management structure, and formed the Dukler Tenant Union in 2025 to transfer ownership away from Dukler’s estate.
Now, HPD claims it will continue to work with Schwartz and the building tenants to ensure the new ownership will “adequately invest” in repairs and maintenance.
“We will work alongside tenants and the new owner to put these 88 homes on a path toward stability and make clear that every New Yorker deserves a safe, well-maintained and stable place to call home,” Mamdani said.
