07/13/2026
NOT BACKING DOWN!
(See link below for story)
NYC Public Housing Tenants Vow to Keep Fighting FEC Demolition Despite Court Ruling
NYCHA and its new allies in Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration have just moved closer to privatizing and demolishing the FEC public houses on Manhattan’s West Side.
By Joe Maniscalco
Public housing advocates battling the privatization and demolition of the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea [FEC] houses on Manhattan’s West Side are vowing to fight on despite a devastating blow from the courts this week.
New York State Supreme Court’s 1st Appellate Division delivered a ruling on Thursday effectively clearing the way for NYCHA to restart its campaign to strip FEC tenants of their Section 9 public housing protections and drive them out of their existing apartments in preparation for demolition.
“We are old people,” Chelsea Addition holdout Yu Zhen Story said in a statement following Thursday’s ruling. “I am turning 80-years-old this week. Some of my neighbors are older than 90. We are heartbroken to be pushed out of our home. My neighbors and I are stressed. Some have heart issues, several have been hospitalized, and others have serious health concerns. We want to find a place to rest for the end of our lives.”
It’s not as if NYCHA ever relented from intimidating FEC tenants like Story, of course, going so far as boxing up their belongings and erasing their names from lobby mailboxes.
NYCHA has been bent and determined to privatize the FEC houses so that it can profit off of a lucrative leasing scheme with Related Companies and Essence Development—the private developers behind the super-affluent Hudson Yards development located not far from the FEC Houses.
All of this despite clear opposition from the local Community Board and residents actually living in the FEC apartments slated for demolition.
NYCHA’s campaign of coercion and intimidation against FEC tenants opposing privatization and demolition has been relentless.
“The court decision is very disappointing for those of us who are most vulnerable,” fellow FEC tenant Jane Rao said after the Appellate Division’s ruling. “Privatization has more risks for us. Why are they demolishing buildings that are in good shape? We need repairs and modernization, not demolition for profit. Housing is for living in, not for profit.”
Last year, Community Board 3 Land Use Committee member David Holowka told Work-Bites that “NYCHA planned all along to take their revenue out of Chelsea—and they had Related Companies as a willing partner because they’re going to make a killing.”
FEC tenants and their allies opposed to privatization and demolition have long maintained that rehabbing the existing buildings located between 9th and 10th avenues would be far cheaper than razing the historic West Side communities to the ground and rebuilding with a new spate of towering market-rate housing.
“Think of it this way,” Holowka further told Work-Bites, “if you took the skins off the existing buildings and completely emptied them out—took out the elevators and all the mechanical systems and just left the structural skeleton—and then started by re-cladding them, putting in entirely new systems, mechanical systems, elevators and completely new interiors within those skeletons—that would be far, far less than the cost of new buildings. The new buildings have to replicate the excavations and the foundations and the structural engineering and the pouring of all of those concrete frames, which are in perfectly good shape. It just doesn’t make sense.”
FEC tenant Samantha Ortiz expressed her disappointment in the Appellate Division’s ruling this week, while also taking aim at the “money hungry leeches” pushing privatization and demolition.
“They are not considering that this will cause many people to be homeless—and if they think the homeless problem is bad now, wait until this kicks in. No privatization, no demolition, and no displacement. Save Section 9, keep public housing public, save our homes,” she said in a statement.
FEC public housing tenants and their allies turned out en masse Nov. 8, 2025 when they marched on Related Companies’ Hudson Yards offices. This week, they are vowing to keep up the fight against privatization and demolition.
While the Appellate Division jurists conceded the difficulty of relocation, they somehow found that tenants had not demonstrated irreparable harm.
NYCHA responded to this week’s court’s decision effectively lifting a previous stay on demolition with glee.
“The project and engagement process will now resume as we work to deliver the new units, improved amenities and state-of-the-art community spaces that NYCHA residents deserve,” NYCHA Chief Executive Officer Lisa Bova-Hiatt said in a statement.
FEC tenants and their allies had held out hope prior to Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s election win that his administration would break from his predecessor’s and oppose the privatization scheme.
That hope was unfounded, however, as the new mayor has clearly demonstrated that his administration—democratic socialist or not—is fully on board with handing over the FEC Houses to Related Companies and Essence Development.
“The Chelsea public housing fight belongs to everyone,” Midtown South Community Council President John Mudd said this week. “It brings together people from brownstones, rent-stabilized and rent-controlled apartments, and longtime and new renters to fight a predatory class that is raining hell upon our society by monetizing our basic human needs. And despite the abuses inflicted upon us, we, the people, will forever come out swinging.”
Link:
https://www.work-bites.com/view-all/2026-5?ss_source=sscampaigns&ss_campaign_id=6a53d1c357140c77312ff119&ss_email_id=6a53d42b57140c7731302f96&ss_campaign_name=Public+Housing+Advocates+Vow+to+Keep+Fighting+NYC+Demo+Despite+Court+Ruling&ss_campaign_sent_date=2026-07-12T17%3A51%3A59Z

By Joe Maniscalco Public housing advocates battling the privatization and demolition of the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea [FEC] houses on Manhattan’s West Side are vowing to fight on despite a devastating blow from the courts this week.
