Holdout tenant in $1,500 West Village apartment fears demolition of historic townhouse

WNYC News | Feb 3, 2023

A landlord's plan to renovate a set of historic townhouses in the West Village is being complicated by a lone tenant who refuses to vacate his $1,500 a month rent stabilized apartment.

Russel Patrick Brown is a harpist and software engineer who’s lived in a 200-square-foot studio apartment on Gay Street for 13 years. The median asking rent in the West Village in December 2022 for all apartments was $4,974, according to StreetEasy.

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