US News

RENT OUT OF SHAPE

A group of rent-stabilized tenants are fighting to keep their East Village neighborhood affordable by turning down buyout offers of up to $125,000 apiece from a pair of real-estate barons.

The residents charge that the buyout bid by Icon Realty Management, owned by Terrence Lowenberg and Todd Cohen, would destroy the building’s sense of community.

“They offered me $120,000,” said Carolyn Chamberlain, 65, a secretary who pays $400 for her two-bedroom apartment in the six-story, prewar building at 176 E. 3rd St.

“I told them I would only be interested if it was middle-six-figure offer. It’s outright harassment,” she said.

Alexander Camu, a bartender, said he turned down a $125,000 offer.

“I moved here when the neighborhood was crap,” he said. “I turned down the offer because I’m being paid to leave my life.”

Camu said the buyout agent was dishonest when he told another tenant that Camu had accepted an offer. Camu said he never did.

But residents estimate that at least six of the building’s 48 tenants have already snatched up Icon Realty’s offer and moved out.

Gentrification has changed the gritty neighborhood – once a magnet for struggling artists and drug activity – into a desirable downtown hotspot with upscale restaurants and bars.

The tenants complained that the landlord recently changed an electronic lock on the building’s front door to a more difficult standard version as a ploy to send them to an Icon representative looking for help. The rep would then use the opportunity to pitch the buyout, the tenants said.

“They want to buy people out and renovate the apartment, and then they want to flip the building,” said Heather Gradowski, who pays less than $700 a month for her one-bedroom apartment.

Many of the tenants said the $125,000 offer sounds like a king’s ransom, but after taxes, they wouldn’t be able to afford to live in Manhattan on it.

Construction is now going on in the vacated apartments to modernize the digs.

Linda Alexander, a spokeswoman for Icon Realty, said the management team did not harass any tenants.

“The [representatives] made several generous buyout offers, and when people refused, they accepted their answer,” she said.

austin.fenner@nypost.com