Larry Gluck Among Worst Evictors In Manhattan: Tenants' Advocates

FINANCIAL DISTRICT, NY — Larry Gluck of Stellar Management made tenants' advocates list of worst evictors in Manhattan, tenant activists said.

A few dozen tenants rallied Wednesday, hand-delivering an "eviction notice" to Gluck's offices at 156 William St. in the Financial District, putting the landlord on blast for filing some 630 eviction lawsuits against families between January 2013 and June 2015, the Right to Counsel NYC Coalition says. Gluck has some 1,423 apartments across his buildings, the coalition says.

In 2018, he filed evictions against 96 families citywide, a newly released map by the Right to Counsel NYC Coalition, JustFix.nyc and the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project shows.

"Housing court is there for a purpose. Not to be abused," Sue Susman, a tenant of Gluck's Stellar Management, said at the Wednesday rally. "It's abusing the law."

"If you sue only because you think you're going to win because the tenant doesn't have a lawyer, that's abusing the judicial system," she said.

She credited the Right to Counsel law for helping prevent some of those evictions. The Right to Counsel law, which provides legal representation in eviction cases to low-income renters, helped more than 87,000 New Yorkers last year, city officials have previously said. Evictions declined to about 18,000 last year compared to 29,000 evictions in 2013, which the city credited the Right to Counsel law for.

Susman detailed various instances in which tenants' won in court against the landlords' attempt to evict them.

"We win when we fight," she said.

Tenants and advocates called for expanding the Right to Counsel law and investigating the worst evictors.

"Throwing families out on the street should not be a normal way of doing business. But in this city at this time, it's part of a predatory business plan," Sandra Contreras, a tenant organizer with the Goddard Riverside Law Project, who also rallied with tenants Wednesday.

Gluck's Stellar Management did not respond for comment.

Stellar Management was among the coalition's top five evictors' list in Manhattan in 2018. The list includes:

• Julius Lamar and David Mateo of Arete Management LLC
• Larry Gluck of Stellar Management
• Rasim Toskic and Joel Wiener of The Pinnacle Group
• Leibel Lederman, Joel Goldstein and Irving Langer of E&M Associates
• Labe Twerski of Residential Management