Cynthia Lane, president of the tenant association at 80 John Street, four blocks from Ground Zero, stood in her lobby on the morning of Sept. 11, ankle deep in dust and ash. Three months later, she said, the building’s owners had not thoroughly cleaned the building or adequately tested the air. The tenants are withholding rent.

"I’m not willing to gamble with my health because they have no interest in looking out for people who live in the building," Lane said. "I’m not saying our building should be held responsible for filtering every single particle, but they’ve done nothing at all to clean the central ventilation system. When the heat comes on, God only knows what’s blowing through."

"We need a protocol for how apartments are tested and cleaned," agreed Kate Webber-Pitcock, a tenant leader at 88 Greenwich Street, also on rent strike, two blocks south of Ground Zero. "So far, we’ve just seen a woman with a mop."

Jack Lester, who represents the tenants of 88 Greenwich Street and seven other striking tenant groups, said the building’s owners had tested for asbestos but not for fine particles or toxic vapors. "I think if we can agree on testing and cleaning procedures, we can reach a settlement," he said.

Owners say they have addressed reasonable environmental concerns. "The building has been cleaned and we are conducting ongoing air testing in the building to ensure that the air quality is safe and satisfactory," said David Lowenfeld, executive vice president of World-Wide Holdings, the owner of 88 Greenwich Street. "We’ve tested for everything that our experts recommended." He said he did not know which pollutants were measured.

World-Wide has offered tenants a 20 percent rent reduction for six months. "The vast majority of tenants in this building have either accepted the rent abatement or have moved on," Lowenfeld said. He would not say how many of the building’s 450 apartments are occupied, but Webber-Pitcock estimated that at least 100 have been vacated since Sept. 11.

In their bids for rent reductions, tenants cite a range of issues, such as lost transportation links and late-night demolition noise. After initially calling for an abatement of 30 to 50 percent, the 88 Greenwich tenant association, representing some 60 tenants, recently said it will accept World-Wide’s 20 percent offer if it extends for the length of the lease and the owners agree to to their environmental requests. A judge last month rejected World-Wide’s bid to force striking tenants to pay rent, but failed to broker a settlement.

The tenant association at 80 John Street, which represents about a third of the building’s occupied apartments, would accept a 20 percent reduction, Lane said. The landlord, WSA Management, offered only a rent credit for the first week after Sept. 11, and tenants who move out are being held to their full leases. The company declined to negotiate at a court hearing last month, according to Lane, and the two sides will go to trial on Jan. 17. Representatives of WSA did not return phone calls seeking comment.

The tenants and landlord of 100 John Street also met in court and failed to settle. A judge will inspect the building this month.

In Battery Park City, tenant groups at 50 and 70 Battery Place, 33 Rector Place, and 22 and 41 River Terrace are withholding rent. Sudhir Jain, 50 Battery Place’s tenant leader, said the landlord, RY Management, started cleaning the building’s exterior only last month, after the rent strike began, and that tenants want independent environmental experts to oversee more work. The association has rejected RY’s offer of a 15 percent rent abatement for six months.

Kevin Singleton, senior vice president of Rockrose, which owns three BPC buildings on rent strike, said that owners are victims, too. He cited vacancies in northern BPC apartments that overlook Pier 25, where debris is loaded onto barges, and noted that Tear Drop Park is now a parking lot for Verizon trucks. "We have not received similar reductions in our debt service to our lenders or our obligations to the Battery Park City Authority," he noted.

Late last month, the lawyer for the tenant associations at two Rockrose buildings, 21 and 42 River Terrace, reached an agreement in principle with the owners, on which the tenants are scheduled to vote this month.
Months of negotiations led to a settlement at BPC’s Gateway Plaza complex. Last month, tenants voted against a rent strike and accepted a revised offer from the owner, the Lefrak Organization, of a rent reduction of at least 15 percent and the right to break leases without penalty. Lefrak also paid for their environmental consultant’s services.

While not all Gateway tenants have embraced what they’ve heard from Lefrak, the company has communicated and negotiated with them since right after the disaster. Many tenants in other buildings told the Trib that what angered them most was their landlords’ inaccessibility and apparent lack of concern.

Jack Lester, who represented Gateway tenants, blamed the city for the many disputes, saying it had failed to establish and enforce rules for the cleanup and reoccupancy of buildings. "We’re dealing with an unprecedented situation that is basically unregulated." he said, "Landlords are reacting in ad hoc, haphazard fashion."