From: AOL Black Voices
City politicians are calling on federal regulators to start making use of a little-known provision in the sweeping financial reform bill passed last year that could help protect affordable housing, like the Bronx building considered the birthplace of hip hop.
Clive Campbell, better known as DJ Kool Herc, held parties in the community room of 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the early 1970s that are now considered key to the development of hip hop. Along with tenants, politicians and community organizers, DJ Kool Herc fought against plans to remove the building from a state-run rent regulation program and sell it to an investor.
“It was a great place to live, and Kool Herc has said on many occasions that it was living in this stable community that freed him up to explore what became known as hip hop,” said Dina Levy, director of organizing and policy at the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, a tenant advocacy group. The campaign was unsuccessful and the building was sold in 2008. Once the new owner took over, conditions deteriorated rapidly and the building eventually fell into foreclosure.
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