Business Housing News
Cold water, rats — and a record fine for a rogue landlord
By Zendo Rouson
Cold water, rats and broken elevators are on a longer list of problems that, for years, have plagued the residents of Robert Fulton Terrace and Fordham Towers in the Bronx.
“My son is in a wheelchair; he cannot get up and down [the stairs]” said longtime Robert Fulton resident Jennifer Sledge, when the elevator wasn’t working for a third time during one week in June.
“You could only use the bathroom when a bag is hanging over you … ” said Christina Christian, pointing out a now-filled hole in the bathroom ceiling of her mother’s 15-story Fordham Towers apartment. They used to cover it with plastic bags.
“It’s all messed up now,” said George Willis, who moved into 17-story Fulton Terrace in 1978, “not how it used to be.”
The properties have fallen deep into disrepair since 2007, when they were removed from the New York City-run Mitchell-Lama affordable housing program and purchased by a company whose partners include real estate investor Karan Singh. In May, the buildings’ owners were handed the largest civil penalty — $31 million — that the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development has ever levied against a landlord. That followed a $10 million fine against the Singh partnership in July 2025 for unsafe conditions at 15-story Fordham Towers, where residents had gone for weeks without heat during prior winters, according to Gothamist and The Real Deal.
“Don’t even try to get heat in the winter. They don’t do no repairs,” said one man, asking to remain anonymous to avoid causing problems for his girlfriend, a Robert Fulton resident.
When she uses her toilet, she often has to flush it with a plunger instead of the toilet lever.
CAM Property Management has been hired to take over maintenance of the two apartment complexes. As for the promised repairs, several residents are taking a wait-and-see approach.
Based on what’s happened in the past, Alberto Zorrilla is far from optimistic. The cabinet next to his kitchen sink won’t close. He paid for a new bathroom sink and its installation. When he moved in 2017, there was a vertical gash extending from about a foot above the handle of his bedroom door to about half a foot below. It’s still there.
“Since day one, they said ‘Oh, we’re gonna get you another door,’” Zorilla said.
On the flip side, “I feel like you have to give them a chance,” said Crystal Tuck, adding that she’s lived in the Towers her whole life. “Now that they have direction, stuff is getting done.”
Yet, she understands the skepticism. According to Tuck, ahead of visits by city housing inspectors, the previous property managers used to turn on hot water and erect scaffolding to make it look like fixes were being made and downplay the bad conditions.
At the end of the dimly lit seventh-floor hallway, Christina Christian’s mom’s apartment had a variety of longstanding problems. Loose tiles, no showerhead and a bathroom door nearly falling off its hinges. Her mother, who wears a mouth mask connected to a breathing machine, used to spend time on the balcony, the daughter said. But in a building where decaying terraces resulted in some residents being ordered to vacate, the danger trumps a nice view of the neighborhood.
“The floor, they were supposed to fix it? Haven’t fixed it,” she said of the balcony.
Longtime tenant Sledge remembers when there was a strong tenants’ association. It’s defunct.
Her apartment doesn’t have some of the chronic problems others have grappled with. That’s because she persistently demanded that repairs be made and paid her rent on time, she said. She faults some tenants for, as one example, throwing trash out of their windows.
“I just can’t fathom in my mind why you would be so nasty,” she said.
Still, she strongly condemns the patchwork solutions and the lack of upkeep.
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