Birthplace of hip-hop in Bronx gets new landlord after battle to keep building affordable

DJ Kool Herc celebrates at 1520 Sedgwick Ave.
BY Daniel Beekman
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

The birthplace of hip-hop has a new lease on life.

The Bronx apartment building where DJ Kool Herc emceed the world’s first hip-hop party was sold at foreclosure auction last Monday to a reputable investment group backed by the city.

Workforce Housing Advisors has vowed to fix up 1520 Sedgwick Ave. in Morris Heights, keep it affordable and build an arts and culture center in the recreation room where Herc famously pioneered the “break beat.”

The graying deejay returned to 1520 Sedgwick Ave. last Thursday with John Crotty and John Fitzgerald of Workforce to reopen the rec room and celebrate.

The room was locked and used for storage under the old landlord Mark Karasick, who bought the 102-unit building in 2008 and then went bust.

Now tenant power, government pressure and music history have saved the Bronx landmark.

“Hip-hop can solve a lot of problems,” said Herc, surveying the rec room with a nostalgic smile. “It all started right here.”

Part of the middle-income Mitchell-Lama housing program when Herc lived there, in the 1970s, 1520 Sedgwick Ave. left the program in 2008 when it was sold to Karasick.

Karasick planned to flip the building for a profit, said Dina Levy of the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, an advocacy group. But he fell behind on his $7 million mortgage instead and let the high-rise deteriorate.

“The hallways were dirty and the garbage piled up,” said longtime tenant Gloria Robinson, 53. “The elevators kept breaking down. It was a mess.”

Robinson and other tenants called on Herc and his sister, Cindy Campbell, for help. Herc and Campbell threw organized the 1973 “back to school” jam that ignited a music revolution. The Campbells left Sedgwick Ave. in 1977, but never forgot the building.

“We still feel that connection,” said Campbell. “We have friends here and we want the building to remain affordable.”

Under pressure from Rep. Jose Serrano (D-Bronx) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Sovereign Bank agreed in 2010 to sell the debt on the building to Workforce for $6.2 million, with the NYCcity Housing Development Corp. issuing the group a $5.6 million loan.

Workforce has enlisted Boston-based WinnResidential to manage the building and secured $3 million in City Council funds to make repairs, plus federal cash via President Obama’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program.

“The building should have never left the Mitchell-Lama system,” said Marc Jahr, HDC president. “But it did, so we had to recapture it as affordable housing.”

The building was found eligible in 2007 for the National Register of Historic Places, but Karasick turned down the designation. Now Workforce could approve it; 1520 Sedgwick Ave. is already a stop on hip-hop history bus tours.

The group wants to renovate the rec room and revive the building’s creative spirit.

“The past is really important,” said Crotty, a Workforce partner. "But we also need to bring forward the youth of today.”

Workforce is weighing subsidy programs for the building, with the goal of keeping rents down.

“We will never increase the amount of affordable housing in the city if we build housing but lose the units we already have,” said City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. “We need to fight to preserve every unit out there.”

News of the sale was music to Mary Fountain’s ears. Despite three years of stress, the longtime tenant is proud to call the birthplace of hip-hop home.

“We got what we prayed for,” she said. “We wanted to stay.”