New York City Public Advocate Letitia James released the 2017 Worst Landlords Watchlist at a Foley Square rally.

NEW YORK CITY—The annual city's worst landlord list has come out and this year Jonathan Cohen of Silvershore Properties earned the dubious top spot.

New York City Public Advocate Letitia James released the 2017 Worst Landlords Watchlist at a rally on Tuesday in Foley Square. The 2017 watchlist highlights the top 100 worst landlords in New York City and the top 10 worst buildings in each borough. Each landlord and building's score is based on 12 different data points collected between October 2016 and October 2017.

“No New Yorker should be subjected to live in a hazardous home, yet bad landlords in our city are forcing too many tenants to live in dangerous and indecent conditions,” said Public Advocate James. “The Worst Landlords Watchlist is a powerful tool to put these unscrupulous landlords on notice and gives tenants the tools to hold them accountable. We will continue to identify the worst abusers of tenants and take on practices that deny working families a chance to simply live in safe, decent housing.”

Jonathan Cohen/Silvershore Properties was listed as the city's worst landlord with 188 units in 19 buildings that have 1,090 New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development violations. In second place was landlord Rawle Isaacs with 214 units in four buildings that amassed 969 HPD violations.

Silvershore pushed back on its ranking in an e-mailed statement, noting that 19 buildings that Silvershore recently purchased were listed as having an average of a large number of open violations in 2017. The statement continued that a “majority of the properties have been purchased from long term owners who have neglected the properties and many of the problems causing the violations were inherited at our purchase. We have done a tremendous amount of work in these properties and expect the number of violations to be reduced significantly once the HPD dismissal inspections are scheduled this month.”

The firm added, “We have been extremely proactive about addressing any issues in each of the buildings. The violations cannot be removed until there is an inspection; the majority of the work has been completed and we are awaiting an inspection date.”

The remainder of the top 10 worst landlords list included: Thomas Steiner (320 units in four buildings with 843 HPD violations); Bruce Haley (170 units in eight buildings with 826 HPD violations); Eric Silverstein (237 units in three buildings with 739 HPD violations); Adam Stryker (177 units in 11 buildings with 734 HPD violations); Joel Goldstein (209 units in 10 buildings with 721 HPD violations); Meir Fried (131 units in 18 buildings with 718 HPD violations); Mark Tress (20 units in one building with 650 HPD violations) and Robert Kaszovitz (207 units in four buildings with 597 HPD violations)

Nine of the landlords on the 2016 top 10 list are no longer included in this year's list. Six of these landlords (Allan Goldman, Efstathios Valiotis, Martin Kirzner, Ved Parkash, Mark Silber, and Michael Niamonitakis) are no longer on the list. One landlord, Harry Silverstein, passed away and no longer appears on the list. The Public Advocate's office notes, however, that many of his buildings are now owned by his son, Eric Silverstein, who ranked number five on this year's list. Two of the landlords from last year's worst landlords list—Felix Gomez and Joel Kohn—have been moved lower on the list due to improvements in their buildings.

New York

NEW YORK CITY—The annual city's worst landlord list has come out and this year Jonathan Cohen of Silvershore Properties earned the dubious top spot.

Instant Insights /

NYC Public Advocate Releases City's Worst Landlords List

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