NYC NOW - MTA Plans to Evict Some East Harlem Families for Long-Awaited Second Avenue Subway

Episode Date: August 9, 2025

The long-promised Second Avenue Subway extension is finally making its way into East Harlem, bringing the promise of long-overdue transit access. But for some, that progress comes at a cost. The MTA is using eminent domain to acquire at least 19 properties, mostly residential, to make way for a future station at East 116th Street. WNYC's Ramsey Khalifeh meets the Diego family, who have just 90 days to leave the apartment they've lived in for decades.

A few weeks ago, we heard about how the 2nd Avenue subway extension project into East Harlem is going to affect the surroundings of East 125th Street. Advocates raise concerns about gentrification, while lifelong neighbors said they're open to much-needed change. Today, we're going down to 116th Street, the location of another future station. This area of Spanish Harlem features several apartment buildings with lifelong residents, and the MTA is in the process of kicking people out of their homes to make way for the new train. This is NYC now from WMYC. I'm Jenae Pierre. Happy Saturday.

I'm here with WNYC's Ramsey Caliphate, who's back to tell us more about his reporting in East Harlem as the 2nd Avenue subway extension begins to completely change Manhattan's poorest neighborhood. He met one of the families who just received a notice that they'll have to leave their homes by October. So Ramsey Lee talked a few weeks. weeks ago, but remind us the ultimate goal for a new subway line in that area. And what can you tell us specifically about East Harlem? So obviously the ultimate goal is to bring public transit to an area that has just not had it for almost a century. Decades, yeah. There used to be an elevated track on

2nd Avenue and 3rd Avenue for people to get around Manhattan in that neighborhood. But that was destroyed and demolished in anticipation of this new project. So these people have been living without public transit unless you walk all the way to Lexington Avenue, it could be 10 to 15 minutes, easier for some, harder for others. But East Harlem is a very unique and vibrant place. Not only is it a very poor neighborhood, it has a lot of issues with psychiatric hospitalizations and open drug use and methadone clinics.

It has a lot of history and people pride themselves on that. These aren't residents who've moved there in the last five years. These are people who have lived in their whole lives. There's a big Caribbean diaspora and people who I met a part of these cultural centers who are really happy to be there. So when you tell people that change is coming, some like we've talked about before are very excited and think it's necessary. Others are concerned and rightfully so because gentrification is an issue. New transportation is very beneficial for the greater good.

But that also means that the housing market gets more expensive. If transit is more accessible to an apartment, that becomes a more desirable place to live. So there's this difference that is tricky for people to look at as we see the beginnings of this big construction project really taking place. And part two of your reporting revolves around the Diego family. Tell me more about this family and the situation that they have found themselves in right now. So the Diego's are a five-person family. They also have two dogs and they have a cat as well.

And they've been in this apartment since 2018. It's on this really busy block on 2nd Avenue between 115th and 116th Street. It's a bright blue building. You can't miss it. And they love it. They were so happy when they moved. moved there. Their youngest son was born when they moved there. This is their community. The youngest sons go to school there. Their daughter works in the neighborhood. But they're scared

because their landlord isn't clear with them about what's happening. The MTA is clear or at least started this process, but all these documents they have to sign and all the legal process that they go through is complicated, honestly, for the average person. Mind you, English is not the first language and a lot of this documentation are only in English. They're not even in Spanish. It wasn't actually until I went through the letters that they received, where they finally realized their exit date was to get out of that apartment. And here you are going through that letter with the Diego family. Martha Diego is sifting through her mail to find a letter she received from the MTA last month.

Her daughter, Jocelyn, finds it. It's titled in bold, 90-day residential vacancy notice and the family's address. It says, Dear Martha, in connection with the construction of the... the MTA 2nd Avenue Subway Project, the MTA plans to acquire the property described above before the end of 2025. It says they have to move out by October 15th. There's a list of apartments attached where the MTA says they could move. But there's a problem.

Most of them are already off the market, and all of them are more expensive than what they pay now. She pays right here to 2,900. Her mother begins to speak and Jocelyn translates for her. And they're looking for an apartment with the rent range being around like $3,000 and like $500. To add to the list, the family's youngest son Anthony is enrolled in a specialized school that requires him to live in the neighborhood. He has autism, and if the family has to move somewhere else, then he'll have to drop out. For the rent to go up high like that as a stay-home mom is kind of difficult for her because she has to take care for him.

New York officials have promised the people of East Harlem a second avenue subway for more than a century. Now that the work is finally getting underway, the MTA is forcing out some of the very people who once thought they would be able to use the new line. The imminent domain process grants the government the right to purchase private property if it's in the best interest of the public. The MTA has already started that process across the neighborhood. The first one is an approval of determination and findings for the acquisition of property via Ammonome Domain or 124 West 125th Street.

It's associated for 2nd Avenue subway phase 2. That's Robert Reichenstein. He's the VP of Transit-oriented Development speaking at an MTA meeting last week. The agency had just completed the purchase of another building in East Harlem. The MTA's push to acquire properties in the neighborhood has dragged on for years.

The Diego's were first told they'd have to move out in April of last year, but the transit agency didn't immediately follow up with them. That was when Governor Hockel delayed the Manhattan congestion pricing program, one of the Second Avenue Subways funding sources. Because the goals of congestion pricing in terms of reducing traffic and pollution are important. But hardworking New Yorkers are getting hammered on costs. And they and the economic vitality of our city must be protected. Hockel at the time argued she wanted to help New Yorkers struggling with costs.

But the decision to pause the tolls left the Diego family lying in. in wait, wondering when the MTA would kick them out. It looks like it's postponed. And when did you hear that? And it's not just East Harlem's residents who are facing eviction. Local business owners fear what the subway construction will do to their bottom line. Luni-cage owns a tile store on the same block as the Diego family. And whether I'm going to even survive the process as a business owner here, I don't know.

Because business has been slow as it is. And not to mention now when the construction workers, they'll block the street, they'll block the whole thing. While the MTA doesn't plan to purchase the building Nikaja's stores in, he worries construction will just kill foot traffic. But this particular one, the retail, the retail store that I have here, this I absolutely positively sure it's going to die out. There's also a couple barbershops, convenience stores, and a pharmacy on his block. Back at the Diego's home on 2nd Avenue, the future is looking blue. Jocelyn says she wants more help from the MTA. We're definitely in limbo.

I mean, it's too much to process. And not only that, we're just hoping that they find us an apartment because me and my mom feel like they have the responsibility to find an apartment. The MTA is following federal requirements to offer relocation services to affected families. And it says he's Harlem deserves the new subway line. We'll be back after the break with more on the Diego family's housing alone. family's housing dilemma, stay close. So Ramsey, is there anything else that you learned out of your reporting? One thing I wasn't thinking about in this process is just how expensive the housing market is.

So you can displace people and give them assistance, but you have to remember that, as we hear, they're entering a housing market that they haven't been in for multiple decades. So Jocelyn told me that they pay about $2,900 every month for their apartment. They actually have subletters in this apartment who are helping pay their rent as well. Do you have a neighbor who lives here as well? Yeah. Just renting out a room? Yeah.

And also over there. So there's two, you're renting out to two other people? Two other people. We have four rooms here. So imagine that. You're barely making your monthly rent now as is, paying $2,900 because you have other people contributing to it. Now you have to go to apartments that cost several hundreds of dollars more a month.

That you can't sublet. That you can't sublet that are smaller and you're a family of five. Yeah. Ramsey, this all sounds like a nightmare. How is it even possible for the MTA and the government to just kick people out of their homes? Yeah. So like I mentioned in that future, we just heard, imminent domain is this power or this right for the government, the state government, even the federal government, to acquire private property if they believe it's in the best interest of the public.

In the situation, like the MTA says, the public deserves a new subway line. So for the Diego's landlord, he owns the property. They're just tenants. So he has to go through a legal process. For tenants, they don't really have any say or control. They don't really get hard cash or money. They get their relocation assistance to move them somewhere else. Earlier, you talked about how the Diego family, they're scared, they don't know what to do.

The landlord hasn't been really communicating with them. where does the landlord stand in all of this? I spoke with the landlord actually several times. He was upset that the MTA went to his tenants first, not him, because he claimed that his tenants stopped paying their rent now that they know that they have to leave eventually. Obviously, I'm going to ask the tenants that and see what they have to say to respond.

And they say that's completely untrue, if anything, they felt misled by him, mainly because he was saying, the MTA is not taking this building, you have nothing to worry about, just keep paying your rent. Obviously, when you hear that from somebody and the Diego's in this case, they trusted him and they feel misled. So I called the landlord again to talk to him and he just decided not to comment.

I think he was frustrated with the process. I actually spoke with a real estate development lawyer. His name is Ken Fisher, and he really explains the process well. In most cases, the property owner will commission their own appraisal. If they can negotiate a settlement, again, it's a little bit more complicated, but it can be a relatively straightforward process. If they don't, then it will go to a court. Both sides will put their experts on and the judge will decide.

But why is the MTA going to the tenant instead of going directly to all property owners? I think the project was really in flux because it's something that they finally were about to get funding for. And when Governor Hokel paused congestion pricing, that was one of the main revenue sources for the 2nd Avenue subway. So that happened just a few weeks after the MTA first introduced themselves to the Diego's. It seems like throughout this process, because it started and stopped and started and stopped again, and now we're back, they just didn't have the right strategy to communicate clearly to the tenants, communicate clearly to the owners, and also give everybody a proper timeline

so we knew how to prepare for this. I want to talk about a few examples of imminent domain, And just so New Yorkers know, this isn't the first time this happens. There's actually a lot of examples that we can point to. The first and more immediate is in the Upper East Side, when the first phase of the Second Avenue Subway Project happened, the government used imminent domain. And they moved people out of about 60 apartments so they could bill that line. That's a neighborhood that is a lot more affluent,

but they still went through that process. And the very historical one is in the 1850s, Seneca Village, this was a majority African-American community, There were some Irish immigrants, and they were property owners, and they had housing and kind of a small neighborhood in what exists today's Central Park. The city says, this is for the greater good of the city. We're going to build this massive and also iconic park, and they completely moved those people out of that neighborhood. Thanks for sharing those examples. It just seems very unfortunate to the Diego's.

Ramsey, how were you able to identify this family and this building? So in order to build these big projects and to get federal money for it, the MTA had to create what's called an environmental impact statement that shows if we're going to build this project, we need to see in how many ways this will affect the surrounding environment, how this will affect people, communities, neighborhoods. So through that, since it's federal money and this is a public project, all those documents are available for the public. Not only that, but court documents to show this eminent domain process. So I looked at both, and both have. have these long lists of buildings that are classified under a few things. One is a property that is determined to be a permanent full taking. That just means everybody in that building needs to leave and the owners have to give it to us. Then there are easements, both temporary and permanent. An easement is just an adjustment if they need to come in to maybe turn off a water main in your

building for a short amount of time during construction. So I kind of created a spreadsheet and looked at every building that's permanently being taken by the government. And I also looked at what storefronts are in that building, what businesses, is it a residential property, is it a church, is it just an empty parking lot? So I picked a handful and I went to 116th Street, this block that seemed to be a cluster of buildings, of businesses, all these people who have their lives and their stakes there. So for the Diego's, that blue building, it really jumps out. So I waited outside. I approached Martha, who's the mother and who we heard from. So Ramsey, just so I'm clear, you have, aside from your reporter job, a personal database that you created for stuff like this.

It sounds crazy, Janay, but honestly, it's straightforward because in this case, it's only about 19 buildings. And with Google Maps and technology being the way it is, instead of me having to go to every single building, I can get a visual online about what this building is, what businesses are there. So, yeah, I've kind of compiled that together. but it's really helpful and an important tool, I think, for future reporting that I might do. I was going to ask, like, what else can come of that? Yeah, so what it can also mean is I can go to the building on 106 Street that I found. In New York, there's a lot of storefront churches. I spoke with the pastor briefly, and we're going to start, I think, a more full conversation,

but he's telling me that they have to move as well. Obviously, the congregation doesn't live in this church, but they go there often. Essentially, you're moving 50, 60, maybe even 70 people. That's just in one property alone. Yeah. That's WMYC's Ramsey Caliphate. Ramsey, thanks so much for sharing your reporting with us. Thanks, Janae.

And thank you for listening to NYC now from WMYC. I'm Jene Pierre. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. We'll be back on Monday.