Got yourself a dreaded case of the Mondays? Start your week off right by catching up on last week's episode of the Hell Gate Podcast. Listen here, or wherever you get your podcasts.
In the ongoing battle to save one of the last remaining single-room occupancy buildings in the East Village, tenants have won a three-year reprieve thanks to an unusual move by the City's Department of Housing Preservation and Development.
Hell Gate first covered the story of 109 East Ninth Street back in May 2025, when tenants claimed that the building's owner, Michael Geylik, was harassing them to force them out of their deeply affordable rooms—some of them pay $155 per month.
The residents said Geylik insisted he needed to demolish their communal kitchen as well as one of their communal showers and two of their four toilets, in order to clear old housing violations with the City. He told them he would build the amenities back better, but he first needed what is called a "certificate of no harassment." The tenants agreed, and helped him obtain the certificate.
Years passed, but the kitchen, shower, and toilets were never rebuilt. Tenants felt betrayed, and have been forced to cook basic meals on hot plates in their rooms.
At the time of our first story, Geylik told Hell Gate he was not trying to push residents out, and said he was just following the orders of the City's Department of Buildings, which issued a series of repair orders. He said the tenants' claims of harassment were "not true," and said he had no intention to "put profit over human life or of evicting the people for money."
But in the following months, HPD investigated the tenants' claims and found probable cause for harassment—defined as conduct intended to force tenants to leave their units—so they took Geylik to the City's administrative court.