Located on West 30th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues, the 353-355 West 30th Street combined two deteriorated mid-19th century brownstones into one 32-unit multiple dwelling for supportive housing. These buildings were base buildings for drug distribution on the west side of Manhattan. One building was so poorly managed that tenants only had three days of hot water during 1994. Complicating matters, the City owned one building, and the other was under a housing-court-appointed 7A administrator. Two instances precipitated escalated crime and drug activity on the block: first, a man running into the middle-income Penn South development with a shotgun chasing another individual, and second, a man chasing another individual down 30th Street with an axe.

To address the dramatic increase in crime on the block, CHDC was approached by New York City’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) in 1994 to develop a plan to stabilize and renovate the buildings. HPD accepted the plan, and within a week, the City added this building to CHDC’s net lease and appointed CHDC’s executive director as the Successor 7A administrator.

By mid-1995, CHDC had removed criminal activity in the buildings through drug evictions coordinated with Manhattan South Narcotics, Midtown North Precinct, Manhattan Community Board 4, the Restaurant Row Association, WESAC (Westside Against Crime), and the block association. By 1996, all drug activity had ceased, and basic services were restored to the building. During this period, CHDC also relocated overcrowded families—some living in single rooms—and senior citizens to other renovated affordable housing owned by CHDC. Some were permanently relocated, while others were temporarily relocated to conduct major renovations.

CHDC later worked with HPD’s Supportive Housing Loan Program, Low-Income Housing Tax Credit equity, and Macklowe Funds (a financial penalty by a developer who illegally demolished SROs in the middle of the night) to finance the gut rehabilitation of the buildings that began in 2005.