William Rudin Archives - Fight For NYCHA

Allen Roskoff markets himself as the doyenne of LGBT progressive activism in New York City. He is the president of the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club in Manhattan. As a result, he bundles donations to establishment candidates, like Councilmember Erik Bottcher (D-District 3) and hosts fundraisers attended by the corporate wing of the Democratic Party, like Gov. Kathleen Hochul.

However, in a recent report published by the New York Post, Roskoff said that he supported the controversial RAD/PACT privatisation and demolition of NYCHA public housing in Chelsea. The report noted that rich White ladies living in million-dollar condos were ostensibly claiming to oppose the demolition due to inconveniences to the wealth residents of uppity Chelsea. But that’s not the whole story, obviously.

Allen Roskoff has made is mark in New York political circles by claiming that he never forgave former Mayor Ed Koch (D-New York City) over the reported failure to respond to the outbreak of the AIDS crisis. Former Mayor Koch, now dead, reportedly lived his life as a closted gay man until his death.

During his final years, former Mayor Koch lived in a luxury condominium apartment at 2 Fifth Avenue, a luxury building overlooking Washington Square Park. The apartment was rented from the Rudin family, now lead by William Rudin, one of the oligarchs of New York. When it came time for the Rudin family to reportedly begin foreclosure proceedings against St. Vincent’s Hospital and the ensuing lobbying effort to close and demolish the strategic, public asset, the former mayor supported the Rudin family’s interests.

Fast-forward through all of the drama, we come to learn that Allen Roskoff has lived, since at least 2009, in a luxury condominium built by The Related Companies, which is owned by Stephen Ross, a MAGA billionaire and the plantation owner of Hudson Yards. Stephen Ross is also the owner of a range of corporations, including the Miami Dolphins football franchise, making him another of New York’s oligarchs.

For all of Allen Roskoff’s propaganda as a progressive activist, we can see clearly that he’s following in the footsteps of former Mayor Koch by his endorsement of the RAD/PACT privatisation and demolition of Fulton Houses and Elliott-Chelsea to benefit Stephen Ross. It harks back to how Ed Koch did the same for William Rudin vis-à-vis the demolition and luxury condo conversion of St. Vincent’s.

The oligarchs of New York have learned how easy it is to buy and boss the leaders, closeted or not, of New York’s LGBT community. The losers have turned out to be the people, who depended on St. Vincent’s as a charity hospital and on NYCHA for Government-owned, low-cost housing. The racial minorities and the disenfranchised suffered, even as Ed Koch and Allen Roskoff rose to eminent positions of proverbial foremen on the plantations of some of New York’s richest, White families.

Yesterday, the seemingly “front face” of the NYCHA protesters, who were bused up to Albany by a syndicate of nonprofit groups, was none other than State Sen. Brad Hoylman (D-Chelsea), the former General Counsel to the Partnership for New York City, itself a syndicate of corporate interests, which rivals the Real Estate Board of New York in subverting Government for big money donors in New York.

State Sen. Hoylman has been deceiving tenants into believing he’s on their side, when in reality he has never stopped working for the corrupt interests of Big Business. Last year, he folded all support for the pied-à-terre tax on non-primary residences with a market value of $5 million or more as soon as, you guessed it, REBNY’s lobbyists began to mount serious pressure against the tax. State Sen. Hoylman will never stand up to Big Business.

This year, Big Business interests are pressuring Mayor Bill de Blasio to end public housing as we know it, including in State Sen. Hoylman’s own district. And State Sen. Hoylman has not once denounced the mayor or the mayor’s plans. Like last year, Fight For NYCHA reasonably expect State Sen. Hoylman to put on a big show about how much he supports public causes, and then he will fold at the very last minute, like he always does.

This is a repeat of 2010, when State Sen. Hoylman, at that time then as chair of Manhattan Community Board 2, claimed that he supported saving St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village, but then turned his back on the community when Partnership for New York City director (at that time then) Willaim Rudin began to call in mortgage notes from the public charity hospital, setting off a chain of events that led to the hospital’s bankruptcy and liquidation at pennies on the dollar.

Is it no coïncidence that, finally, on the same day when Mayor Bill de Blasio moves word of his rapid expansion of RAD conversions in Brooklyn and Manhattan, it would take place as State Sen. Hoylman was leading this charade up in Albany ?

It’s like that famous scene in the Godfather (1972) movie, when the main character Michael Corleone attended the baptism of Connie’s baby. As Michael was being made the godfather of the baby in a church service, his henchmen carried out assassinations so Corleone could seize power. Up in Albany, there was State Sen. Hoylman at the metaphorical alter. Meanwhilst, down in New York City, Mayor de Blasio, who, as REBNY’s henchman, was earnestly carrying out the hits on public housing.

Tag: William Rudin

When did Allen Roskoff become a MAGA foreman on Stephen Ross’ Hudson Yards plantation ?

Does the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club want to make Chelsea more White ?

RAD/PACT is racist. Is that why Allen Roskoff supports it ?

Like the late Ed Koch before him, Allen Roskoff lives in a luxury condo built by one of REBNY’s most powerful plantation owners.

Brad Hoylman, enemy of the people, was improbably the “front face” of the NYCHA protest up in Albany

Brad Hoylman was up in Albany, with public housing residents as a backdrop, so he could say he was not in New York City for the public housing bloodbath.