I Was a Slumlord; G. Frank

1972 THE EDUCATIONAL DILEMMA 365 1960's. Only the divorce of gov ernment from academic responsi bility will prevent institutions of higher learning from becoming completely politicized and their inmates reduced to cogs in a totalitarianized political machine. Education is, largely, the busi ness of stimulating rigorous in tellectual discipline. But it must limit itself to intellectual disci pline and should not impose the discipline of any political party, of any religious group, or even of any national state unless it is plainly advertised as such and is there fore known to be serving necessar ily as a part of the indoctrinating apparatus of that party, group, or state. I) r WAS A SLUMLORD. Here is how r came to be one. r was born 69 years ago. r learned the craft (maybe the art) of cabinet-making in my native land, Hungary. This would have been my 50th year of working actively, creating in wood many things of lasting beauty. My name is well-known and well-respected in the trade.

About 20 years ago r bought a small factory building in East Harlem, at 508 East 117th Street, where r worked together with my team of 10 to 12 men. With changes, improvements and addi tional construction, the factory cost me about $65,000. A few years after I bought the building, the adjoining building, © 1972 by The New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission from The New York Times, January 30, 1972. No. 510, was offered to me at a bargain price because it was in poor repair. With the idea of ex panding my workshop into it, or using the lot for parking, I bought it. For $12,500 in cash r became the owner of a four-family house. The four families living in the house are all decent working peo ple. To my knowledge they do not need and never asked for charity, public help or assistance. Yet the law forces me to give them shelter and heat at a lower price than my own cost. For several years now my cash expenses have exceeded my income by about 25 per cent, and this without interest or amortization payments on the mortgage.

The building was in poor repair when I bought it. By now it is the favored hunting ground of every city inspector.

366 THE FREEMAN June The building needs a new roof, new walls, new ceilings, new plumbing, new wiring, new doors and a new heating system. It needs about $15,000 worth of repairs. The building now has a gross income of $2,600 a year, of which I am paying for taxes and heat about $3,000. Why didn't I apply for a hard ship rent increase? My accountant told me there would be a blizzard of paperwork, and that if he was able to get me any increase, my fee to him would have taken away whatever I gained in the first two years. So far I have been fined four times for failure to comply with orders to correct building code violations! I was summoned to court again only a few weeks ago, and I explained my predicament to the judge. He assured me of his "sympathy," fined me $40 and promised that my next fine would be much higher. I did not go home from the court. I went straight to the offices of the local Roman Catholic Church and asked them to accept the building as a free gift. They didn't. An hour later I made the same offer to the Protestants.

Again the answer was no. Next I offered the building free, without any money, to the four tenants. They didn't want it. Okay, I will abandon the building, was my next thought. I will stop collecting rents, will not pay taxes or heat. I .will let the city take over. This sounds like an easy way out, but my lawyer tells me it cannot be done without my be ing legally financially responsible. So, here I am with a building assessed by the city at $21,000 - I repeat $21,000 - that I cannot give away, I cannot sell, and I cannot abandon. I am forced by law to operate it. That is, I was. I am not any longer. I have sold the building for $30,000. As an extra inducement I threw into the bargain my good old fac tory. building, which cost me close to $70,000, for nothing. In other words, I sold real estate that cost me $80,000 about 15 years ago for $30,000, to be paid without inter est in six years.

With the $50,000 that I lost on the deal - and which is a major part of my life savings - I bought freedom. At 69 I am too old to start a revolution, or to fight City Hall. On the other hand I do not like to be summoned to appear in crim inal court, when my only crime is that I dared to own a building in New York. I will badly miss my shop, where I spent 49 happy years. But . I am no longer a slumlord! I) MERRYLE STANLEY RUKEYSER IN THE NINETEEN SEVENTIES,busi ness baiting, no less virulent than in the past, has become more sub tle and sophisticated. It consists of efforts to equate technology with utter disregard for ecology. The new attack is sometimes launched in a flood of tears for consumers. Behind the new ~ for national economic backsliding is the runaway expansion of the welfare state which exalts leaners at the expense of producers. The new politics denigrates the sys tem for cultivating progress through rewards and incentives.