A notorious landlord known for turning empty rent-stabilized apartments into illegal hotels and letting mushrooms sprout from the walls of tenants’ crumbling apartments is facing more than $4 million in penalties from New York City — a sum renters say still won’t be enough to actually fix their problems.
Landlord Daniel Ohebshalom, also known as Daniel Shalom, will pay close to $4.2 million in fines and settlements in three separate lawsuits brought by the city’s Office of Special Enforcement and Department of Housing Preservation and Development over the past three months, court records show.
The city accused Ohebshalom of raking in more than $300,000 in illegal hotel fees after displacing tenants in rent-stabilized apartments at his Hell’s Kitchen properties, and presiding over severe housing code violations at his buildings in Washington Heights.
Ohebshalom did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Fungus growing from walls, front doors that won’t lock and collapsing ceilings earned his managing agent the top spot on the public advocate’s annual “Worst Landlord List” last year. Buildings in his portfolio have amassed thousands of housing code violations, city records show.
Mayor Eric Adams said the fresh round of penalties send “a clear message to those who harass tenants.”
“You are breaking the law, and we will hold you accountable,” Adams said in a statement.
While the civil fines and settlements mark a small victory for tenants demanding safe conditions, they’re chump change for Ohebshalom and his associates and probably won’t lead to lasting reforms, said Marc Kessler, an artist and playwright who has lived at one of Ohebshalom’s Hell’s Kitchen properties for eight years.
Kessler said he and his roommate were forced to move from their apartment to a neighboring Ohebshalom-owned building following a fire in their building in 2015.
Years later, the apartments in that building, 412 West 46th St., still sit empty with the…
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