Real Estate Giant Once Praised by City Now Has 2 Execs at top of Worst Landlords List

A financially struggling mid-town Manhattan real estate giant, which once drew praise for preserving affordable housing in Harlem, has just had two of its top executives named #1 and #2 on the annual list of Worst Landlords in the City.

A&E Real Estate Holdings president Margaret Brunn was deemed the #1 worst landlord, followed right behind in number two by vice president of operations Donald Hastings.

Making the infamous list may be the least of the 15-year-old company’s problems, however. The company which was founded in 2011 with the acquisition of single apartment building in Brooklyn, expanded rapidly in the ensuing year, amassing considerable debt as it snapped up rent stabilized apartment buildings across Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan.

Nine years ago, the rapidly growing firm was drawing praise from then mayor Bill de Blasio after it bought the Riverton apartments in Harlem and agreed to keep most of the 1,299 units in the complex affordable after the previous owner defaulted and lost it to lenders. The housing complex was started by Metropolitan Life for Black residents that the discriminatory insurance company wanted to keep out of the Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village complex it built downtown in the late 1940s.

“This is preservation on a grand scale, and it is going to protect the kind of economic diversity that’s always been part of Harlem,” said Mayor de Blasio in 2015 after the acquistion. The city at that time rewarded the company with $100 million in property-tax breaks and other incentives.

But over the past year, it has faced financial strains as it had trouble servicing the debt it built up in its period of rapid expansion.

In October, Apex Bank claimed the company was in default on a $29 million loan backed by 1080 Amsterdam Ave, a former St. Luke’s-Roosevelt residence (the hospital is now Mount Sinai Morningside.) And earlier last year, a $506.3M foreclosure lawsuit was filed against a portfolio of 31 A&E properties that included the very same Riverton Square housing complex in Harlem that once drew such praise from de Blasio.

The annual list of 100 worst landlords in the city was released on Jan. 21 by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams.

Hastings was listed as the executive in charge of 36 of the apartment buildings including seven in northern Manhattan and 29 in the South Bronx. The 36 buildings have 3,889 open Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) violations, eight building code violations and in the past two years, eight tax liens against properties in his portfolio.

One of Hastings holdings at 2 Elwood St., was named number two on the Manhattan watch list by Public Advocate Williams. The other A&E holdings in Manhattan on the watch list include 530 W. 123rd St. with 42 HPD violations; 503 W. 122nd St., with 127 violations, 342 Ft. Washington Ave, with 239 violations; 350 Ft. Washington Ave. with 142 violations and 370 Ft. Washington Ave.

Brunn, with 24 buildings on the watch list in Brooklyn and Queens racked up 4,872 open HPD violations, nine DOB violations and, over the past two years, 68 tax liens in her portfolio of buildings.

“Together, they account for 60 buildings and an average of nearly 9,000 open violations during the list’s assessment period,” Williams said. “This is the first known instance of the top two landlords representing the same entity and is a demonstration of both the breadth of violations at their properties and the means with which corporate entities seek to avoid accountability with different LLCs and head officers in city records.”

Neither Hastings nor Brunn nor the company itself had returned several calls seeking comment.

Williams said that the #1 and #2 worst landlords individually surpassed any previous owner’s violations. Among the violations: rat and mouse infestations, broken doors and defective fire escapes.

Mayor Mamdani on Jan. 16 revealed the city had reached a settlement with A & E agreeing to pay $2.1 million in restitution for past violations and agreed to correct more than 4,000 building code violations across 14 buildings.

The reversal of fortune over the past decade could not be more dramatic. “For years, A&E has operated with callous disregard for those residing in its properties, racking up over 140,000 total violations, including 35,000 in the last year alone,” said Mamdani. “This is not just a failure to serve those to whom it holds an obligation. It is overt cruelty to tens of thousands of New Yorkers. City Hall will not sit idly by and accept this illegality, nor will we allow bad actors to continue to harass tenants with impunity.”

In addition to the seven Manhattan buildings owned by A&E, Williams in his Jan. 22 announcement said he had placed 67 other Manhattan buildings on the watch list and they were largely concentrated on the Upper West Side. A Chelsea Building at 406 W. 25th was the sole representative from lower Manhattan on the list.