Charley, Charley, Charley,...You Old Dog

"While aggressive evictions are making rent-stabilized apartments increasingly scarce in New York, Representative Charles B. Rangel is enjoying four of them, including three adjacent apartments in a sprawling penthouse overlooking Upper Manhattan, courtesy of one of New York’s premier real estate developers.

Mr. Rangel, the powerful Democrat who is chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, uses his fourth apartment, six floors below, as a campaign office, despite state and city regulations that require rent-stabilized apartments to be used as a primary residence.

Mr. Rangel, who has a net worth of $566,000 to $1.2 million, according to Congressional disclosure records, paid a total rent of $3,894 monthly in 2007 for the four apartments at Lenox Terrace, a 1,700-unit, six-tower luxury development with doormen that is described in real estate publications as Harlem’s most prestigious address.

The current market-rate rent for similar apartments in the building would total $7,465 to $8,125 a month, according to the Web site of the owner, the Olnick Organization."

-- David Kocieniewski, reporting on the continuing (but expected) saga of Democratic hypocrisy, for the New York Times

My friends, the walls are indeed tumblin' down,...