NEW YORK — The stately dining room at this once-bustling old-age home has been emptied, its floors ripped up. The tiny general store’s shelves are barren, and the exercise room has gone silent. No one is leafing through the books of the library or digging into a treat in the ice cream parlor or painting at an easel in the art room.
All that remains are five women, ages 91 to 101, in the fight of their long lives.
Two years after the sale of Prospect Park Residence was announced, nearly all of the assisted-living facility’s 125 residents have long since heeded management’s orders to leave. But five holdouts have refused, challenging the handling of the $76.5 million sale and sparking a web of litigation. Their fight sheds light on the rights of the elderly and the difficulty of transition in life’s twilight.
“I think we have that right to do what we want to do,” said 93-year-old Annemarie Mogil, a retired social worker who has remained in her eighth-floor apartment at the home. “I’ve earned my rest. I worked hard. I deserve my peace.”
As the building in the trendy Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn emptied, a small band of tenants decided to put up a fight. Local politicians came to their side, and The Legal Aid Society filed suit on their behalf. As the months ticked by, they said management purposely worsened conditions in hopes of convincing them to leave.
The holdouts said they were being bathed less frequently, saw housekeeping scaled back and central air conditioning cut off in favor of less-effective window units. They said hot water was tampered with.
Those moves, opponents of the sale say, were orchestrated by building owner Haysha Deitsch even as he raised fees on the holdouts. He denied it, and in a countersuit against the families of the remaining residents, he called for $50 million in damages for their interference in the sale, “slanderous” allegations and resulting “mental anguish.”
In an e-mail reply to questions from The Associated Press, Deitsch said he always followed the law, that residents always got outstanding care and he never cut back services. Closing was not an easy choice, he said, but costs became untenable. He portrayed the remaining residents as unable to make decisions on their own, and represented by individuals with questionable motivations.
Deitsch said residents’ complaints should really be with the Legislature and state regulators. New York City Councilman Brad Lander also sees lax state oversight, though he isn’t letting Deitsch off the hook.
“He is evil. He is acting in a way that I think is sociopathic. But the state health department has essentially taken the side of the sociopath,” Lander said.
As hearings drag on, emptiness abounds in the building on coveted Prospect Park West.
Mogil spends much of her day down the hall with her friend Alice Singer.
Singer knows she might be seen as stubborn, but sees no good alternative.
