(Elizabeth Lippman)
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The tattooed, scruffy owner of a third-generation auto-body business in Chelsea says he’s being squeezed out to make room for trendier tenants favored by the area’s hippest new resident, High Line Park.
“I’m getting pushed out . . . [The park] has been a nightmare,” griped Brownfeld Auto Service owner Alan Brownfeld, 54, whose grandfather started the family business in 1920.
“I had a right to extend my lease, but my landlord said, ‘I can’t do it right now because of the High Line people.’ So he’s terminating me and trying to get me to vacate my premises.
“They want to replace us with an art gallery or a high-rise . . . I’ve been here my whole life,” said Brownfeld, whose small shop is on West 29th Street between 10th and 11th avenues.
“My grandfather started the business in 1920, horse-and-buggy time. There were no cars. He was doing the leaf springs on carriages. And now they want me out? Please.”
Brownfeld said his lease ends today — but that he’s not going down without a fight.
“I will pay my rent. If [the landlord] does not take it, I put it in an escrow account,” Brownfeld said, adding that he pays $15,000 a month for the 50-foot-by-100-foot lot.
“I’m going to fight this until the judge’s gavel slams down and says I have to vacate the premises.
“I want to leave with head held high, not pushed out by the city, not pushed out by the landlord, not being thrown out because of a stupid park.”
According to city zoning records, the building is in an area that had been rezoned for residential and mixed use — although not body shops — in 2005. But the auto-body shop was grandfathered in, so if the landlord wanted, Brownfeld could stay, city officials said.
Robert Hammond, co-founder of the group Friends of the High Line, denied trying to push Brownfeld out.
“This is not the case. We enjoy the way the auto-body shop fits into the cityscape and makes the view from the High Line so interesting,” he said. “This ultimately is a private matter between the landlord and tenant.”
Landlord Ronnie Abramov refused to discuss his plans for the property, only saying that Brownfeld “has plenty of places to go to” and that “[the High Line] is not the problem.”
Local flower-shop owner Maryann Finegan, who gets her five delivery trucks serviced at Brownfeld’s, said she would be devastated if the auto-shop owner was forced to leave.
“This neighborhood wants to homogenize everything into a Yuppieville,” she lamented.
The nonprofit Friends of the High Line have been heralded for transforming the West Side’s infamous, decrepit railroad trestle into a stunning urban oasis that’s helped revitalize the entire area by luring artsy boutiques, restaurants and hotels.
But Brownfeld said it’s been at the expense of long-time locals such as himself.
“I have a small shop, I barely make the rent,” said the mechanic. “But you know what? . . . I do want to keep my family legacy going.”