“Do what you love and let it kill you”

— Henry Bukowski

Since the Pedophile-in-Chief has a green light (and a green reflectging pool) to do anything including rig markets, lie, cheat, steal, murder — it is instructive to pay attention to that old homily by Tip O’Neill which stated that “All politics is local.”

If that’s really true we’re all in trouble because downtown is a political cesspool. Even with Democratic, liberal claims BEFORE the midterms.

Let’s talk about the current state of rent-stabilized apartments in Manhattan. We have the Buildings Department, HPD and the courts. The Buildings Departent is tasked with the physical condition of structures, HPD is responsible for maintaining apartments and reviewing landlord responsiveness and the courts are, of course, where lawsuits, non-payment actions and evictions play out.

Our current Mayor Mamdani was elected with strong support from housing activists. So, I sent some information about my landlord who managed to use the courts to evict 95% of the rent-stabilized tenants in the building. That did not help a tenant who recently WON her appeal but was nevertheless evicted by the court because she could not pay the landlord’s legal fees for trying to get rid of her. And, by the way, she had been the head of the former Tenant’s Association. You see a connection here? Are you following this? Does it look like maybe the landliord, who spent $200,000 to evict one tenant, maybe bought himself a judge through the law firm?

Let’s back up.

I myself managed to survive seven years in court with the same landlord — who gossip has it — stole the building from the former owner’s family WHILE I was in prison. Yes, for shooting my mouth off as a journalist and being the target of a vindictive prosecution by the Hamptons D.A. Thomas Spota and his buddies in Southampton — whom I exposed for corruption. He recently was released from prison. But it didn’t stop my landlord and his corrupt flunkies from trying to help them indict and prosecute me so that I’d be evicted. And then interfered with my Parole in a prison system that makes racism look good. Torture is the operative concept in DOCCS.

The building now is mostly market rate tenants who never complain because the landlord does not have to renew their leases — and who retaliates in spades. Especially, for telling the Truth. Their law firms (Belkin. Burden & Novick Edelstein) managed to empty the building of rent-regulated tenants. Try paying rent PLUS legal fees, folks!

Mamdani are you listening? Does this sound like a criminal enterprise endorsed and supported by the City? And, Buildings Department is a corrupt entity which helps landlords defy the law and accepts cash. HPD is corrupt and is staffed by idiots whose inspectors barely speak English and enforce NOTHING. Cea Weaver ignored my book about this corrupt landlord.

The Community Board under Tobi Bergman ignored my direct complaints about this criminal enterpise in Hudson Square — and then moved to Greenwich Village after bagging $20 million for his neighborhood SoHo building. Now he’s telling us how our area should be developed.

The Department of Innovation and Technology which is responsible for the 311 system is a fraud. We have not had access to 311 system for years. With no 311 there can be no complaints.

And, the courts work for landlords in Manhattan. Through law firms and party politics.

I contacted WNYC to report this story of a landlord that permitted constant illegal AirBnB sublets, violations of American Disabilities Act, apartments where Sex Trafficking was occurring because one of the landlords was involved, where seniors and disabled tenants are harassed, and where it is possible that the building was stolen.

But, with big money — especially if it’s stolen — Nothing Works.

In the next issue: Westhampton Beach Village. The most corrupt village in the Hamptons.

— Donald. Clark MacPherson

The SoHo Journal 25th Anniversary magazine has recently resumed publishing and “Prisoner of the Hamptons” will be available on Kindle in the near future. Neither this blog nor the magazine are non-profit but donations are accepted at Post Office Box 1032, New York, NY 10013.

“Do what you love and let it kill you.”

Charles Bukowski

As the hostilities play out, I’m reminded of my childhood in Brooklyn where the gangsters would hang out on the corner in suits and fedoras discussing business. It was 1957 — before the Appalachin meeting to pick a new Capo di tutti capi Vito Genovese, and exposed the wiseguys running through the woods. They had no fear about doing things openly and in public because according to Hoover, the head of the FBI, there was no such thing as la Cosa Nostra or even organized crime. Those of us who lived in Brooklyn knew better.

Last Exit to Brooklyn made more sense to those of us living there as the Verrazano bridge was being completed where they all escaped — to Staten Island.

We now live in a gangster-ridden America where the illegal has become legal, thievery is now a government contract where crime depends upon which party you belong to. When the crime boss dictates who runs the federal government’s agencies only those who oppose him — or criminals who work with him (whom he has appointed) will be pardoned if they’re caught. Or if he doesn’t get his vig. Can you imagine suing the IRS?

So, for example, we can talk talk about the city agencies in Manhattan, who no longer protect tenants and are run by political hacks that commit crimes themselves. It’s a redundant concept. I remember the Buildings Department trying to push me out of my apartment because I had done work on it with the permission of the owner (like all of the lofts in SoHo), who then wound up in foreclosure and passed on the building to an individual who owned the unpaid second mortgage. He became the owner before handing off the building to a couple of thieves posing as dentists and who had their eyes on the family’s portfolio or real estate. They used the HPD, Buildings Department, Community Board, District Attorney’s office, and a slew of landlord law firms like Belkin Burden and Novick Edelstein to deprive me and my family of everything that we had — and they’re still at it. Mandami has done nothing. So, welcome to the gangster economy where crime is legal, theft is good, and lies are Truth.

The Saudi’s bombed us on 9-11 and now do business with the President’s son-in-law, Putin is our friend, Traitors are given pardons, and pedophilia is the new IN look. The king needs a war so good luck!

The United States of America was the protector of the free world. Now it’s a gangster economy and the thieves run the show with impunity. Believe the reverse of everything that you are told.

— Donald Clark MacPherson

Note: Prisoner of the Hamptons — the True Crime novel about doing time in a New York State prison will be available in May.

“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” 

— George Washington

Try telling the Truth and see what it gets you.

Let me tell you. Not much. I’m reminded of it every morning when I put my hands in my pockets looking for change to buy a Dunkin, no more donuts. My 5 year old stretch pseudo-suit pants have zippers since the jeans I had after getting out of prison are wearing out. So the jacket from my last suit BEFORE I went to prison now matches the stretch pants that are wearing out from AFTER I got out of prison. The former D.A. in the Hamptons, Thomas Spota, got out recently after they stopped reading about my exposing of corruption. He got 5 years, did 2, and now has a job and $17 million in cash. He collected $9000/mo. IN prison and his buddy Suffolk County Chief of Police Jimmy Burke (Jimmy the King Gus Garcia-Roberts) who did 4 years for beating the shit out of a prisoner who stole kiddy porn, sex toys and drugs from Burke’s car, was picked up after he got out of prison. He solicited sex in a Long Island park from an undercover cop. He still gets a healthy pension. I get nothing — not even an agent.

Let’s face it. Truth doesn’t pay. It certainly won’t get you a job or a book deal. It might get you prison. But we mostly all know or suspect that. That’s why we live in a corrupt Trump society. No morality, no conscience. No Truth. No agent. Only fake politicians lying to us and stealing from us.

After writing about REAL prison life, writing about the criminals who still run the Hamptons, publishing myself, and then defending against it with a shitty lawyer, no money and a Trump-styled vindictive prosecution — unlike our D.C. friends with cash — I had to take a plea.

It’s all in my books; Prisoner of the Hamptons and A Civil Death. I just finished another but that’s only about a Manhattan landlord who kills the owner’s family.

You’d think that it would be easy to find an agent and a publisher. Let me tell you. Crime is easy. Publishing the Truth about true crime is hard.

No, you can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometime, you’ll find
You get what you need.

— The Rolling Stones

“A lie told once remains a lie, but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth.”

— Joseph Goebbels

Hitler was not happy with the relationship between Goebbels and Czech film star Lida Baarova but was otherwise a Goebbels fan — they had a close relationship. And it was fascist heaven.

What we are are now facing is simple, Due to the historic attack upon our Democracy, a cabal of very rich and very wealthy cowards are controlling what we digest on a daily basis. They think we are stupid. The news organizations are slowly being accumulated and given their marching orders if the Oligarchs wish to protect their billions in wealth, The Washington Post is gone. CBS, Paramount, The Los Angeles Times, — with Warner and CNN now targets if the Ellison/Trump/Carr extortion operation gets their way by the FCC threat to prevent Netflix from obtaining a license or alternatively Trump suing after Susan Rice spoke freely on Preet Bharara’s podcast.

As Idi Amin said, “We have freedom of speech but we can’t guarantee freedom afer speech.”

That’s where we are now, not where we are headed later. We’re already here folks. Again.

So, before the tables are turned, be cognizant of the fact that while we are now only theoretically a democracy — it is the Oligarchy that operates the “free flow” of ideas known as News as long as it has a fascist smell to it. Even the cult is now waking up to the fact that in its zeal to claim that an all-white, Christian, misogynistic America is what we should want and believe in and push to achieve — one way or another — that it might be a mistake.

Get your news now from sources that are not threatened by politicians, pedophiles, oligarchs or billionaires. Follow bloggers like Steve Schmidt, Rick Wilson, D. Earl Stephens, Robert Reich and podcasts like Stay Tuned with Preet Bharara — who recently had Susan Rice on his program. Even Rogan has begun moving in the right direction.

Support candidates and politicians like Dan Goldman who are pissed off at the weak-kneed politicians and newscasters being instructed by the likes of fake journalist Bari Weiss as to what we are allowed to digest — having destroyed “60 Minutes” — and will wind up with worthless stock in their portfolio. Don’t bother tuning in to TV stations that frame your information for you or listen to pedophile politicians who support genocide induced real estate deals, like the re-development of Gaza.

Orwell never imagined how Epstein and his cohorts, the Oligarchs, make him now seem like an optimist. But Goebbels knew. We’ve been ignoring what’s right in front of our faces for years. But MAGA knew. before realizing that Epstein wasn’t a hoax after all — they were originally right to their chagrin. Even my rich, corrupt landlord knew this since he was operating an Epstein-style sex-trafficking operation out of the building where I live. Even local NYC government before Mamdani — the D.A., HPD, Buildings Department, and Mayor — knew but ignored that young european teenage girls were being raped and prostituted — for fun and profit and like the Epstein “hoax” no politicians did anything about it.

“Forgive your enemies but remember their names.“

— John F. Kennedy

While all of this Epstein shit is swirling stupid shit is still going on — like the petty action of the government in removing the flag commemorating the Stonewall rebellion in Greenwich Village. But what is now spilling out raises some interesting questions.

While you cogitate upon the fact that it was recently reported that Epstein ordered huge amounts of sulphuric acid to be delivered to his fantasy island where he took little girls and invited politicians for R & R. You have to wonder what has been going on. Like sulphuric acid in large quantities belongs on an episode of The Sopranos. He was getting rid of the remains.

So, aside from several politicians in Europe and here, among Lutnick, Bannon, Trump and one of our very own former Mayors — I’ve been re-evaluating my own prosecution in the Hamptons. For example, the players in my case were D.A. Spota, Deputy DA Constant, David Betts, Patrick Heaney, Joseph Lombardo, Michael Sendlenski, Josef Miceli, Christopher McPartland and Cheryl Kraft. These were people who were forerunners in attacking immigrants and needed to shut me up for exposing their corruption. In fact, though, the Gilgo Beach murders were underage prostitutes buried on Gilgo Beach. But It took Spota a decade to make progress (before he went to prison) — including the three years that he delayed corruptly prosecuting me to fuck the journalist. Me.

Why? The easy answer is that he was using the time to extort money from Steve Levy who was running for governor. His only interest was money. Or was it?

But, let’s look at his buddy James Burke (a sexual predator), the killer cop who Spota protected to the point of being prosecuted himself. When Burke was arrested he had drugs and porn in his car — described by a few cops as snuff films and underage prostitute home videos. So, was Spota involved or protecting a killer cop who was also a pedophile like Epstein’s bunch? Was it a much larger extortion/sex operation? Were the bodies discovered of ALL of the missing young girls (and boys)? Or, was this a MUCH larger copy-cat operation which used Long Island instead of an offshore private island to disappear young girls and boys by a group of pedophile politicians?

After all, the current immigrant-killing national operation was first perfected by the Town of Southampton and the Code Enforcement fascists. Perhaps, with our government collapsing under the weight of lies, thievery, corruption, sexual attacks, misogyny and pedophilia — the prosecution of Gilgo Beach should be opened wider to investigate whether there were MANY more missing young underage girls and boys buried — or dissolved by evil politicians.

If we are a country being run by old white guys who are criminals and pedophiles we should remember their names and put them behind bars.

I did four years because I spoke and wrote the Truth. Let me tell you, those Black, Spanish and White biker guys in prison know how to treat pedophiles.

Former District Attorney Thomas Spota now out of prison.

“I love real estate”

— Donald Trump

One of the campaign issues that Mamdani championed was the protecting of rent-stabilized and rent-regulated apartments in New York City. It is a worthy cause. Of the roughly 2.3 million apartments 960,000 are rent-stabilized and 16,000 are rent-controlled (down from over one million) apartments. About 229,000 are subsidized due to disability. NYCHA (Section 8) subsidizes about 90,000 families. Mitchell-Lama has about 46,000 families and there are about 174,000 public housing low income units. Affordable Housing is a rotating list of apartments that mostly is negotiated by Community Boards and politicians when developers are looking for city gifts in the form of regulation waivers (see NYCHDC). Buried among all of these numbers the value of the rental real estate is approximately $1.3 Trillion in Manhattan alone.

Think about these numbers and values when you think about Housing Court. Of the 10,000 evictions in 2025, 3000 were in Manhattan. There are 50 Judges handling 200,000 cases a year. There are dozens of law firms specializing in representing landlords. While only ten percent of tenants can afford representation. The “Right to Counsel” law is supposed to correct that. It’s bullshit. The judges rule for landlords and shit on tenants.

Your landlord starts a lawsuit against you for any of a number of real or trumped-up claims and, guess what? You’re on your own, baby! You are fucked even if you are a rent-stabilized tenant with so-called rights. They kept me in court for seven years and then got the case transferred to Supreme Court so it could continue with motions and legal maneuvers.

Now we get to the good part. I contacted Mamdani’s Deputy Mayor. The criminals operating my building basically emptied the place by doing the old TWO-STEP — Start an eviction for any reason; hire a law firm to harass the shit out of tenants; deprive the tenant of legally required work (good luck with HPD, Buildings Corruption Department, Community Board 2) and collect RENT while suing the poor fucker who also has to PAY AN ATTORNEY up to $700 an hour.

So I wrote to the new mayor, who I like, with the following letter:

---

Leila Bozorg, Dep. Mayor

City Hall

Madam,

As a rent-stabilized tenant, D.I.D. member, former CB2 member and a resident of Manhattan for over 80 years, like Noah Cross in Chinatown, “I still have a couple of teeth in my head and a few friends in town.”

I’ve recently finished my True Crime novel about a current New York City landlord and his family that has been abusing and harassing tenants out of their apartments with the help of the City and courts for decades. You may find it enlightening. The blatant corruption makes Glenn Gary Glenross seem quaint, by comparison. I’ll send along Vol. 1 if you think you’d like to read it.

It’s a tragi-comedy that is ongoing.

Sincerely,
Donald Clark MacPherson

---

–

I even left out the fact that my landlord had allowed a sex trafficking operation in the building, arranged for tenants to threaten each other, deprived disabled and elderly tenants from having front door keys, and recently evicted the head of the Tenant Organization as retaliatiom.

So, what was the response from the Mayor’s Office?

Zero. Nada, Nothing. Not a Nooch!

My request for walls in my apartment has been ignored– since the landlord forced me to remove any privacy owing to the fact that he (they) have successfully evicted 95 percent of the rent-stabilized apartments in my building with the help of the courts — ignore A.D.A. requirements and abuse senior and disabled tenants. I myself had to defend against a bullshit eviction case costing $750,000. I now live with plastic Legos for walls, constant drilling to repair our dilapidated structure, Zero security — and managed by a criminal enterprise collecting up to $10,000 per month from unsuspecting apartment searchers. Free rental income from this stolen real estate funds tenant abuse that has been going on for decades.

I’ve not heard anything from the City Council, the Mayor, Buildings Department, District Attorney, Department of Investigation, U.S. Attorney, or any of several law firms — all of whom realize that the current owner stole the building and can afford any litigation he and his associate wants to engage in.

This is the unchecked state of Manhattan real estate rentals.

–

“The planet is fine. The people are fucked.”

— George Carlin

I was sent to prison for exposing DA Thomas Spota, Joseph Lombardo, Patrick Heaney, David Betts, James Burke and Thalia Stavrides in the Hamptons — writing about corruption, con artists, thieves, killers, drug dealers, liars, pedophiles, rapists, racists and misogynists. Aside from my landlord Mark Ramer and his partners, I named politicians for their crimes. Those IN prison were much less of a concern. There, the rapists and pedophiles were often killed. Inmates who are never getting out don’t care about lawyers, pardons, explanations or “sorry..” Your rape a 13 year old, you’re dead motherfucker! Whether the Latin Kings Major sanctioned it or a biker got the go-ahead from Rebel, the Sergeant-at-Arms, it was going to happen on the walkway or Mess Hall. No one saw it — even if they did.

Prison Justice is swift and unforgiving but most of the time the sentence meets the crime. None of this legalistic bullshit where the details get sidestepped and legalistically danced around. If you groom and manipulate a child, you deserve to be fucked up the ass and then killed. End of story, fucker! We need more of that no matter who you are!

My landlord thought he was cute too. A model agency was rented an apartment from landlord Ramer and associates Saperstein and Rivera. The model agency imported 13, 14, and 15 year old Eastern european girls who shared an apartment. Another tenant, George Bogart, thought he had a great idea, since he’d been allowed to rent several apartments, one of which sublet beds to these underage “models” as he sold them coke and invited the landlord and other associates over for “visits.” It was a sex trafficking operation permitting one tenant to operate three apartments as the landlord took advantage of Luxury decontrol to rid themselves of all of those other pesky rent-regulated tenants using the courts and expensive lawyers. Tenant George provided a whore house of children with the cooperation of the landlord, Community Board and its Chair Toby Bergman. I know because I told them and a few politicians about the rapist scam. They laughed and ignored me.

So we have a dance in which the country is run by pedophile rapists having convinced “America The Stupid” to support the Christian religionists who stand by and allow politicians to rape children, Epstein-style. They justify their hypocritical stupidity and racist beliefs by explaining their so-called “Vertical” committment following commands from above.

And, these sex criminals think Project 2025 and Christian Nationalists should be our future when they put pedophiles and rapists in office? Well, the Brown Shirts are already on the street doing their job, aren’t they?

“Anything can happen to anyone at any time.”

— The Big Short

I remember being played in prison. The D.A. who had prosecuted me for writing about the corruption in his office, known as a “criminal enterprise” after they finally got him for a variation on thievery – you know, like what we see every day in the White House?

The guy who was playing me was from Senegal and had a great rap. Apparently, according to him, diamonds and small pieces of gold lay on the ground calling out to be picked up. When I finally got the gist of what he wanted from me it was simple. He’d supply the diamonds and have them installed in cheap watches. All I had to do was get them through Customs. I said I’d think about — so I didn’t get a sudden razor slice across my throat. He was in for murder.

I’ve been getting those feelings as I waltze down Canal Street lately where there isn’t much room for pedestrians who aren’t shopping for expensive knock-offs, handbags, wallets and Rolex watches. I wanted a Rolex which ranged in price from $40 to $120 depending upon how well I was dressed and whether I looked like a cop.

Apparently, D.O.T is clueless about the wisdom of widening the sidewalks for these entrepeneurs but the Katzenjammer kids neve were exactly brilliant — even when they worked for Bloomberg and got their degree from Harvard. After all, they don ‘t shop on Canal Street. No one from around here does either since residents know it’s all shit.

What’s new though, is where these characters sleep and shop and store their goods.

That would be the Canal Street Post Office, folks. The new homeless contingent and napping location — where they take a time-out, jabber in some other language, and hide stuff — is where the Post Office boxes are located at the Canal Street Station — you know, where civility died 50 years ago.

Be forwarned. Safety is in numbers. But not. necessarily for you.

“Fuck you, pay me!”

— Henry Hill describing Paulie’s attitude in Goodfellas.

The new shopping plan from our dear leaders in the DOT where widening the sidewalks to accommodate shoppers (buying from African immigrant sidewalk “shopkeepers”) is what we deserve on Canal Street, right?

Well, at least, that’s what we’re going to get.

As it is, residents who hope to reach their bank or a real shop unmolested past the jolly immigrants who gleefully escort SoHo shoppers through the crowds — you MAY avoid being attacked. So, let’s narrow the street so that traffic will be “unmoved” and make room for chaos. After all, aside from Christopher Marte, what politician gives a shit about SoHo? Unless — as we choke on bikes, bike racks, bike lanes and delivery lunatics — supported by Trinity, the Hudson Square BID, the SoHo BID, Transportation Alternatives or the real estate developers — there’s a bribe involved.

Keeping the holidays bright

Gold Rolexes and handbags from Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and Dior on Canal

An bundance of shopping delights in SoHo

New inventory arrives daily from the fashion capitols of the world.

Tiffany’s on wheels

A Moveable Feast

What Affordability Crisis? Shopping at SoHo’s finest Boutiques.

Bringing in latest fashion selections from Paris