Patricia Gary spent her life as an educator and independent Egyptologist. She lived comfortably in a landmarked brownstone on 131st Street that she purchased in 1995. But on Aug. 29, she was forced to say goodbye to it as volunteers came out to help Gary pack up her clothes, furniture, and decades of books and scholarship on Ancient Egypt. But she was at least thankful for the help.
“It lets me know that God is hearing my prayer,” Gary, 76, a retired professor of speech and theater at John Jay School of Criminal Justice, told the Amsterdam News, describing her response to the people who came out to help her. “Yes, I am so touched by people who don’t even know me who want to help me,” Gary said of the community members and Stop Deed Theft organizers who showed up.
“I promise you, I promise you I will pay it forward.”
She purchased the brownstone from a woman who lived across the street for $80,000 and later obtained a HUD 203(k) rehabilitation loan, bringing the mortgage to nearly $260,000. By 2001, Gary said, she was already “fighting off predators” tied to her mortgage. She says she did not understand why foreclosure threats kept arriving, even though she says her taxes and mortgage payments were being paid. A 2015 fire also cut into her rental income from the building while she was paying for her mother’s home health care services in South Carolina.
“It’s just been an awful, awful time for me, and especially these last few days,” Gary shared. She said she has been suffering through years of legal and financial problems, and what she describes as intimidation inside the house.
Gary is fighting eviction now because, at some point, foreclosure papers were supposedly served to her stepfather, even though she says he had been dead for 10 years, had lived in South Carolina, and had no connection to her Harlem home.
“What happened was that Francis Kahn, who is the judge here in Manhattan, said he allowed my house to be wrongly foreclosed. [He’s] saying that they served my stepfather at a time when he had been dead for 10 years, and we have the death certificate, and I have never been served,” Gary said.
Evangeline Byars, a lead organizer with the People’s Coalition to Stop Deed Theft, said that the alleged service on Gary’s stepfather was fraudulent and Gary’s earlier attorney never raised this point in the right court and as a result, she missed the legal window to contest the eviction. Byars said Gary now needs lawyers willing to go to the Supreme Court to challenge the title to her property and try to get her back into the home.
“She needs justice in Supreme Court to re-establish ownership,” Byars said.
Property records reviewed by the AmNews now show a company called 166 Herzl LLC as the property owner for 119 West 131 Street. AmNews has requested comment from 166 Herzl LLC about how they acquired the property, their position on Gary’s allegations, and what happened during the eviction and removal of her belongings but they have not responded.
Within two days of receiving an eviction notice, Gary says movers showed up cutting her locks. She says they threw away several of her cherished belongings and even physically pushed her at one point.
“They did push me down one day onto the floor, and Carol [Ceballos, owner of Tio’s Bistro] caught me before I hurt myself badly,” Gary said. She says Ceballos has provided much support.
In one video posted on Stop Deed Theft’s Instagram page on July 28, officers moved Gary’s belongings out of the home, with one officer, City Marshal David Smith, telling Ms. Gary, “You don’t live here anymore.”
Gary remains distraught over what she describes as cherished belongings she has had for 40 years, including research and her computer, having been either thrown away or temporarily seized.
“I didn’t have an opportunity to say this is research…they just wanted to be out of the place very much,” Gary said. “That hurts me so bad.”
Her supporters are raising $100,000 for lodging, storage, and to hire a new lawyer for her. There is an online campaign on the crowdfunding website Chuffed, and Tio’s Bistro in Harlem is holding a fundraiser.
Response not enough
Her case appears to fall within the deed theft/predatory real estate realm threatening Black neighborhoods in Harlem, Brooklyn, and Queens — areas where rising property values endanger longtime owners.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani has acknowledged that this is a crisis, and, on April 24, he established the Mayor’s Office of Deed Theft Prevention, appointing Peter White as director. The agency is tasked with working with agencies like the Sheriff’s Office, Housing Preservation and Development, district attorneys, and the state attorney general to protect homeowners and increase enforcement against scammers who have targeted seniors, immigrants, and owners in historically Black neighborhoods.
But Byars says the promised response from the Deed Theft Prevention Office has not been there for people like Patricia Gary. She said the People’s Coalition to Stop Deed Theft has asked for a direct meeting with the mayor because it is concerned that the Deed Theft Prevention Office is not yet ready to help people who are growing desperate.
“You call 311; there is no Office of Deed Theft. You call the line, you don’t get through,” Byars complained. “The people who they brought on have no experience in this area.”
Byars said Stop Deed Theft has been able to connect families to lawyers and resources, and it does not have the kind of infrastructure City Hall now has. “How come the mayor’s office can’t do it?” she asked. “We were supposed to together establish this office, and that is not happening.”
Answering to the lack of an adequate response, a spokesperson with the Department of Finance shared a statement with the AmNews.
“We have worked to build the systems and infrastructure necessary to address the ongoing threat of deed theft,” the statement said. “We have received more than 200 deed theft referrals through our new online portal and have communicated with individuals that submitted an intake to the office.”
They say there have been more than two dozen referrals to law enforcement agencies for investigation. They also encouraged any possible victims to contact the office at the website nyc.gov/deedtheft.
Patricia Gary has now taken up residence in a hotel room and put much of her life’s work in storage, but she’s not giving up on getting back inside her house. “That’s my house. I paid with my soul for that house,” Gary asserts. “God gave me that house. That’s my house.”
