Untitled from Benjamin Fearnow on Vimeo.

A wispy cloud of black smoke belched into the air from atop a building in the Flatiron district on an overcast November morning.

“The building is called Madison Green, ” said Isabelle Silverman, an attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund, “but it is not so green.”

Almost 9,000 of New York City’s buildings aren’t so green either.

To create heat and hot water they burn dirty heating oil that Silverman calls “unrefined sludge.”

This 1 percent of the city’s buildings causes 86 percent of the city’s heating oil soot pollution, surpassing the soot pollution of all the city’s cars and trucks, according to an Environmental Defense Fund study.

About 5,500 large boilers are burning No. 6 oil, while 3,500 burners are burning primarily No. 4 oil, in buildings such as the San Remo and Flatiron Building, according to an interactive map produced by EDF. Even some schools burn the “dirty” oil.

There are six grades of fuel oil in the US, numbered 1 through 6. A lower number means a lighter fuel with a thinner base and greater “energy potential,” according to the report.

All the fuel oils come from petroleum. Nos. 1 through 4 are considered “distillate,” while Nos. 5 and 6 are considered “residual,” meaning it is the fuel oil that still remains even after the removal of distillates such as gasoline.

No. 6 oil, as the report states, is the “heaviest and thickest of all fuel oil—it literally comes from `the bottom of the barrel´ of refined petroleum.” No. 4 is an equal mixture of No. 6 and No. 2 oil.

The soot emissions caused by No. 6 and 4 oil, the types of oil used in these buildings, can cause inflammation of the lungs, airway constriction and emphysema. Further, the emissions can exacerbate cardiovascular problems and lead to heart attacks and premature death from cardiac arrest, said Thomas Matte, a professor of urban public health at CUNY School of Public Health.

Residual oil has a higher concentration of metals than other oils, making the particles more toxic, Matte added.

Dirty oil also contributes to New York City’s nickel levels, which are nine times the national average of other US cities, Silverman observed. Airborne nickel has been linked to cardiovascular disease and premature death.

Legislation Overlooks the Dirtiest Oil

Both the City Council and state legislature have passed legislation to clean up some aspects of heating oil, but none of it really touches the dirtiest of them all, No. 6 oil.

In July 2010, then-Gov. David Paterson signed a law that reduces the amount of sulfur allowed in No. 2 oil, effective starting in 2012.

A month later, Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed into law a bill that reduces the amount of sulfur allowed in No. 4 heating oil, and requires that all heating oil contain at least 2 percent biodiesel fuel, also effective starting in 2012. Aside from the 2-percent requirement, neither of the laws addresses No. 6 oil.

In testimony before the City Council, Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Casswell Holloway said the DEP is considering a rule that would phase out No. 6 oil and require all equipment that currently burns No. 4 or 6 fuel oil would have to use low sulfur No. 4 fuel oil upon permit renewal.

The rule, which is also under consideration by both the Mayor’s Office and the city’s Law Department, will be announced once an agreement is reached on all aspects of the rule, said Mercedes Padilla, a DEP spokeswoman.

“Outright prohibition of the burning of No. 6 oil would be too much of an economic burden for the private and public sectors of the economy,” Padilla said in an e-mail.

Silverman said she is helping DEP write this rule. Phasing out No. 6 could have been included in recent legislation.

“Theoretically, the City Council could have passed that law,” said Silverman in a November 2010 interview in her Flatiron office. “They didn’t want to. It’s not a popular measure.”

This may be because No. 6, while the dirtiest oil, is also currently the cheapest. The average price of No. 6 oil is to be $2.00 per gallon, while the average price for No. 2 oil is $2.20 per gallon, according to Silverman.

Another reason might be the structural costs of switching to cleaner oil.

Only a few components of the boiler would need to be replaced to make a switch, said Dana Lowell, a senior consultant at M.J. Bradley & Associates and co-author of the EDF report, titled “The Bottom of the Barrel.”

Lowell said that the owner would not have to replace an entire boiler unless “it’s so out-of-date” that it should have been replaced years ago. In the process of switching out components, however, anything else in the building that is tampered with has to be brought up to code, and asbestos might have to be removed, he said.

“A lot of it would be related to stuff that they hadn’t done for 20 years that they should have done,” Lowell said. “The actual fuel switch does not actually cost that money.”

Angela Sung, senior vice president of the Real Estate Board of New York, a landlords’ group, said the problem “is not that the building is not up to code, but it’s a pretty significant investment for any building.”

Sung also expressed concern that the price for No. 2 oil might increase, and she wondered whether there would be enough of a supply to meet the demand for it.

There’s also some uncertainty involving the price differences and fluctuations if ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel isn’t the across-the-board industry standard, said Jacqueline Monterosso, communications director for the Rent Stabilization Association, another landlord group.

Landlords have just gone through five years of significant price increases on home heating oil with, Monterosso said. With most companies refusing to deliver the oil unless payment is made upon delivery, even a minimal increase will make it that much harder for residents in low income housing to keep up, he said.

“Until there is a reliable source of ULSD at prices the same as currently being charged to owners, the RSA is opposed to this bill,” Monterosso wrote in an e-mail.

The cleaner option would be using natural gas, which creates lower emissions than any fuel oil.

This is not a simple process, said Charles Wesley, a program manager at New York State Energy Research and Development Company. There is an interconnected network of pipes that would be needed to feed each building, which means that streets may need to be opened up to install adequate piping.

“People are not going to want to rip up Madison Avenue to put in a new pipe,” Wesley said.

He added, “It’s not just the pipe on that street, it’s the pipes that feed that pipe.”

Getting landlords to switch to natural gas would also be challenging because the infrastructure already being established for No. 6 oil usage.

Also, there is no law requiring the use of natural gas.

“The city gives no financial incentive or tax incentive,” Silverman said, referring to what it would take to make the switch to natural gas. “The only incentive they have is that it’s 30 percent cheaper and will stay cheaper.”

Building owners need to get on board with the switch to natural gas, especially if there’s going to be a higher demand for it in the future, she said.

“Once they have thousands of requests [to switch], it could take years,” she said. “So it’s better to do it sooner before the rush.”

But the issue comes back to how much buildings would be willing to pay for cleaner heating oil with significantly lower sulfur content.

A lighter heating oil doesn’t require the warming, cleaning and maintenance of filters like that of No. 6 and No. 4 oils, according to the EDF.

However, the high initial capital costs present a challenge for buildings even considering making a change to a lighter oil or natural gas, said Ross Gould, air and energy program director for Environmental Advocates of New York.

“If you put in the equipment now, you’ll reduce operating costs going forward,” Gould said. “Possibly over a 10-year period, you’ll recapture the cost in your investment. But unfortunately, when it comes to energy, people don’t make the transition so quickly. They just rather pay the lower cost.”

Throughout the city, the dirty oil is causing other issues in addition to air pollution.

Some buildings are showing the environmental effect No. 6 oil is capable of wreaking on older heating oil tanks and burners.

The Washington Square Village community is still reeling from the effects of a December 2009 oil leak from two 20,000-gallon residual fuel tanks inside Buildings 3 and 4, which house New York University faculty members and graduate students, said Barbara Backer, a member of the Environment Committee at the Washington Square Village Tenants Association.

It is still unclear a year later what caused the leak, which caused emergency evacuations and a $100,000 remediation plan, Backer said.

The leak of No. 6 oil was “a catastrophe,” Baker said. “At first, they said it was 5,000 [gallons], but it turned out to be 15- or 16,000 gallons.”

“These were underground storage tanks that had been down there 50 years, which is way too long for them to be down there,” she said.

Industry experts state that the average lifespan of an underground heating oil tank is between 10 to 15 years, and the likelihood of a leak increases as the tank gets older, according to the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation.

Some Schools Burn Dirty Oil

There is another issue, Silverman said: Four hundred forty New York City schools continue to burn No. 6 oil.

The Bloomberg administration plans to eliminate No. 6 oil from 100 schools in the next 10 years, but it would take $5 million per school to make the transition, Silverman said.

For all the 44O schools, that’s roughly $2 billion total to remove No. 6 oil from being burned in public schools, Silverman said.

Making the switch to cleaner oils in the 440 schools faces even more hurdles. Asbestos would have to be removed, and the work could only take place in summertime. Some would argue that the money should go toward teachers.

In the meantime, a small percentage of New York City´s 900,000 buildings are still contributing a disproportionate amount of the pollution.

“Nine thousand and five hundred buildings run on No. 6 oil. They create so much pollution,” Silverman said. “Why should these buildings be allowed to pollute the air and save a few dollars?”

It was a cold evening in January 2009 when Christopher Blyth heard something that sounded like Niagara Falls coming from the building next door. He ran next door and banged on the wooden door. No one answered.

Meanwhile, Blyth’s basement was filling up with water. As the owner of the property, he immediately activated the pump in his basement, and tried to empty the water that was seeping through the walls into his ground floor apartment while waiting for the fire department.

The firemen had to break into the abandoned building and shut off the water supply.

“[The level of water in] the cellar was as high as a person,” said Blyth.

This was not the first time the building at 210 w. 136th had been a problem to its neighbors. A couple of years earlier, a squatter on the 4th floor nearly died of carbon monoxide poisoning while running an illegal furnace. The carbon monoxide was so dense that it set off the alarm in a neighboring building, who then notified emergency personnel, Blyth recalled.

After the flood, the the building was sealed off, the windows covered with cement. Before that, Blyth said, “our biggest fear was that someone would start a fire.”

And Blyth is not alone with his concerns.

One out of eighteen New Yorkers live on the same block as buildings with broken or boarded up windows. Many of these buildings are abandoned by owners and inhabited by squatters. Harlem, where Blyth lives, does not even make the list of top 10 neighborhoods with abandoned buildings, according to a grant filed by Housing Preservation and Development.

Abandoned building on 136th Street, in Harlem. Photo by Emily Liedel

The next block over has three brownstones with boarded up windows. Nonetheless, abandoned buildings is off the radar for both city agencies and nonprofits. “This has not been a problem since the late 80s,” said Harold Shultz, a senior fellow at Citizens Housing and Planning Council.

Squatters tend to start fires to keep warm in these buildings, according to the New York City Fire Department’s press official, Frank Dwyer.

“It can definitely endanger their lives, the lives of firefighters and neighbors,” said Dwyer.

For this one building on 136th St – emergency repairs have cost the city of New York $29.897.13 over the past 3 years.

But, the city is picking up the tab.

While the owner, listed in the Acris documents as Anthony Durant has been paying the building’s property tax. – the city has not been able to recover the amount spent on up keeping this property.

Eric Bederman, the Housing Preservation and Development spokesman, says a lien is placed on buildings that have outstanding emergency repair bills, and “The building can not be sold or refinanced until that lien is paid.” The city does not actively go after the owners to recover the money, however.

Mr. Durant is also connected to two buildings in the Bronx, one of which is being renovated, the other one is abandoned.

However, in the Department of Finance records the owner of the property is one Tabatha Williams.

So, who owns it?

If the city’s past is any indication – it is not an easy fact to discover.

The issue of murky ownership of properties in this city is not a new one. It is a historical problem that first came to light when the Bronx burned in the seventies and it is a problem that continues to plague the city today, says Professor William Menking, an architectural historian.

“If you pick any of these abandoned properties, and try and discover who owns it – it will be a shell game,” says Menking, “often a trust is set up to own just one property, so other assets can’t be reached.”

Assets that the city needs to get to in order to maintain these abandoned properties – particularly because of the effect it has on surrounding properties. According to the city council, the city recognizes various degrees of abandonment. While the number of completely abandoned buildings dotting the city has dwindled considerably since the Koch and Dinkins administration – the issue of crumbling properties is still a key one.

One policy analyst in the council said that while the city is not interested in keeping these properties it still has to deal with their maintenance. Here, he says, with this issue of ownership – there was need for more legislation. A recent bill amended the administrative code of the city of New York to require stricter reporting requirements for the building owners.

But Menking, for one, is not convinced it will be easy.

Abandoning buildings in this city is not illegal, it is the failure to keep it up that can be penalized.

“When it comes to buildings, where looking to make sure that all the buildings are structurally sound,” said Ryan Sitzgizbon, a spokesperson for the Department of Buildings. “If we find a problem, we will work with the owners to fix it. If the owner is not willing to be involved, we will make the repairs and then bill them for it.”

BY RUBY EDWARDS

The first time I meet Ken Sunshine is a scorching Friday of Rosh Hashana. Except for him and an assistant, his Fifth Avenue office is deserted: just rows of empty cubicles, his 50 odd employees nowhere to be found. But Sunshine remains, glued to his desk, ear to the phone, doing his job.

Publicity never sleeps.

Don’t worry, leave it in my hands, it’s under control, he keeps saying in a mastered, soothing tone to the well-known diva on the other end of the line, who is having the kind of crisis that only plagues a celebrity.

He looks over and mouths “sorry”—who knows how long this call would take?—but his voice never sounds impatient or hurried or the least bit like someone who might have a stack of other phone calls he needs to return before he can leave for the weekend.

Sunshine’s look is as distinctive as any of the Hollywood actors he represents. His eyes are almost a transparent blue, and are contrasted with a full head of luscious grey curls– impressive for the age of 62. His face is weathered. His voice is gruff. It has an old-Hollywood, film noir villain quality.

As Sunshine talks, the male assistant shuffles into the corner office every few minutes with yet another index card with the name of a high-profile client on hold on Line 1, on Line 2. Each time, Sunshine considers: “Yes, no, no, I’ll take the call.”

When Sunshine steps out of his office and onto the streets of New York City, the vast majority of passersby will have no idea who he is. And yet in some of the most powerful circles in New York, Hollywood, Albany and Washington, he is a household name. Sunshine was recently named one of the most powerful people in the city by New York magazine, which described him as the “Madonna of PR,” a statement referring to his wizard-like ability to re-invent images and brands.

That’s the most lucrative part of his business, and the reason his company, Sunshine Sachs Associates, is doing so well, adding employees and opening a new West Coast office in the midst of a recession.

But it’s just one side of his business. Sunshine, who got his start as a community organizer and rose through political circles to become former Mayor David Dinkins’ chief of staff, still  spends the majority of his time on non-commercial clients such as labor unions, environmental groups and other non-profits.

“He cares about people and causes,” Dinkins says. “His general philosophy is in sync with liberals and progressives.”

The fact that Sunshine is so little known is to a large extent because he refuses to self-publicize. The company aims to be discreet about whom it represents, and insists on having a website no more elaborate than a title page with the name of the company and its contact details. He doesn’t brag about his clients — the Ben Afflecks, Bon Jovis, Justin Timberlakes, The Jackson family — because it’s his job to be discreet.

Due to the nature of his job he talks to the press every day, but keeps the subject matter strictly to clients and usually avoids interviews and profile pieces of exactly this nature at all costs.

The second time I see Sunshine is very different from the first.

I accompany Sunshine and his assistant Nina one afternoon to an environmental focused public school in Brooklyn, which is in need of his expertise. A meeting has been set up, courtesy of a program called “Pencil,” that brings people like Ken together with schools to see what private individuals can do for public institutions.

As we arrive at the nondescript gray building in the less trendy part of Williamsburg and are greeted by the principal, neither party knows what to expect. Sunshine is out of context as he strolls through the harshly lit corridors of what his assistant describes (with nostalgia) as a “typical American school,” but still appears at ease.

The principal shows him into the room, motions for Sunshine to sit and doesn’t so much as offer him a glass of water. She’s a busy woman— she has a school to run. Who is he after all?

“What’s your name?” she asks in a brusque manner.
“Ken Sunshine?” she cuts in. “Oh that’s funny: my middle name’s Sunshine.”

She is somewhat humbled when he gets around to revealing his resume, however: “You’re quite a big shot!” is her reaction.

Sunshine is quiet, patient and respectful as the teacher speaks of the school’s need to generate funding. He  writes very neat notes. When it is the principal’s turn to tell us her life story and how she ended up with the idea of starting an environmental school for local, sometimes troubled kids, Sunshine seems even more impressed with what she says than she was by him. He squints his eyes and fixates on her.

As she describes her mission, he nods his head and says, “That’s fantastic,” in that Hollywood voice.

* * *

Sunshine’s life story began far more routinely than it progressed.

He was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Naussau County. His father worked in the paper industry, and his mom was a stay-at-home-mom, before later becoming a social worker.

He has two brothers.

At school, he played basketball.

As a product of the anti-war generation, Sunshine was a student activist at Cornell University in the early 1970s. “I wanted to change the world,” he said, in a manner that makes you believe he is aware how many times this line has been used before.

It was while working as community organizer, an occupation since made famous by Pres. Barack Obama, that Sunshine “slowly got sucked into democratic politics,” which he had been complaining about for years.

He then went on to work at ASCAP, The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, at a time he professes he “didn’t even know what publicity was.”

In the earlier years he also ran for public office at one point, spent time in China when white faces were as rare as capitalist enterprises and worked as an adviser for a string of public figures including Bob Abrams, Ted Kennedy, Bella Abzug and Mario Cuomo.

While Sunshine’s background is clearly rooted in politics, he has always been interested in entertainment, although, “I’m not a frustrated musician or anything,” he laughs. And those who know the industry will understand he is referring to the many PR/media gurus and record execs that are often endearingly frustrated musicians whose talents lie elsewhere.

But it would still be sometime before he broke into entertainment proper. Before this, Ken Sunshine was chief of staff to Dinkins during his time as mayor. (Sunshine had done a lot of work in the African American community, and so it didn’t come as a major surprise when one day his friend Dinkins called him up and asked him to take on the role.)

Sunshine describes his job as effectively trafficking who the mayor did and did not see, during what was “a moment of crisis in New York, with the crack epidemic and the economy in tatters.”

Almost 20 years on, Dinkins speaks very highly of Sunshine, calling him an “effective and loyal,” and crediting Sunshine with introducing him to some of the celebrities, such as Barbra Streisand,  who would be instrumental in fundraising endeavors.

Mayor Dinkins says, “He’s been very helpful to me and I will always be grateful.” The two men remain good friends, and their families intertwined.

Sunshine became a public relations agent in his own right after work with the Democratic Convention scored him his first client: Sen. Bill Clinton. His next client, and first in entertainment, he also met through Democratic politics. Whilst he no longer represents politicians, Streisand remains his devotee today.

Although he is reluctant to share his roster of clients, Sunshine jokes, “I represent a lot of funds, causes and troublemakers.”

Shawn Sachs is Sunshine’s business partner, and owns part of the business, which earned him the honor of having his name featured in the company name: Sunshine Sachs Associates. Sachs can be seen as the more accessible element to the partnership, the one that is closer to the more day-to-day stuff.

He says, “Ken loves what he does, but managing the business, he doesn’t want any part of it.
“Listen to him, he just wants to do PR” (He motions toward Ken, who is arguing on the phone in the background.)

He likens his relationship with Sunshine to a family: “functionally dysfunctional.”

Sachs talks about Sunshine’s inclination towards non-profit work:  “It happens constantly, Ken wants to take on projects that don’t pay.

“He leads with the heart and not the pocket.”

And Sunshine confirms this.

“I don’t need to be the biggest, or richest,” he says.  “Big PR companies will take money from anyone.”

They have a broad and unique spectrum of clients.

Sunshine tells me: “Not everyone we represent is saving the world, but at least we’re not representing the polluters.”

Sunshine Sachs has been approached by a few oil companies and other big corporations that want representation. Sunshine’s response to this is: “We sue the bad guys, we don’t rep them.”

Shawn Sachs described is partner as “a political animal.”

And Ken Sunshine makes no secret of his political leanings to current and prospective clients. Some of his clients think he’s too political, and others are attracted by precisely this.

He represents people like Michael Moore, who is a champion of progressive politics, and with whom Sunshine agrees on most things. However, he makes a point of letting people know that “we also rep Republicans and people who don’t care about politics.”

He may in recent years have distanced himself from politics somewhat, but is often lured back into it when he gets the calling.

I notice how easily he gets sidetracked from talking about himself as he launches into a piece about where he stands on Obama:

“I was originally for Hillary for President. I’m a New York Democrat.”

He backed Obama after the primaries, however, and was involved in organizing the star-studded inauguration ball.

Sunshine concedes that Obama has made mistakes, because “he has been too compromising with Republicans for one,” but nevertheless remains a loyal supporter.

“Those on the progressive side of the Democratic Party, like me, would kill themselves for him.” You can tell by the intensity in his piercing eyes that he means this.

“My wife says politics is like crack to me: If I take one puff,I’ll be addicted.” A mischievous look appears on his face that is reminiscent of a naughty schoolboy.

* * *

During the car journey to Williamsburg, Sunshine had told me, “I do what I do best from my desk instead of gallivanting around the city, or the world for that matter.”

And by the third time I come up to Sunshine Sachs offices, I begin to really understand that if you want to see Sunshine “in action,” then rather than attending the premieres, the conventions, the benefits, this is the right place to be.

He’s finishing another conversation when I arrive and is visibly exhausted after a late night “at an event for my friend Andrew Cuomo.”

His assistant shows me into his office.

She lets him know that some Kennedy or rather is one Line 1. He tells her, “I’ll call back.”

It is a spacious office: smart but not extravagant.

His desk is chaotic- covered in stacks of files- like a lawyer’s office with piles of cases.

On closer look I realize that among those stacks of files that looked like law cases are a bunch of editions of People magazine, all with colored sticky markers popping out the sides.

Behind his desk and chair, hanging up, is a vastly overlapping collection of VIP/Access passes from premieres, parties, conventions, concerts.

A Time Magazine book and “Dignity,” photographs by Dana Gluckstein, sit on the coffee table.

A screen with muted CNN adds silent ambiance to the room.

On the wall, in addition to photo ops of Sunshine with Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and Obama, there is a snap of Sunshine and Fidel Castro in his early days.

What’s the story of the photo hanging on the wall, I ask him.

It is a night-time shot of a jovial Sunshine, the younger version, walking alongside a fit and healthy Fidel Castro, dressed in his infamous green combat costume.

Although he never gets around to answering how exactly he ended up in the presence of one of the 20th century’s most untouchable figures, he does share the priceless memory of sitting around late one night: Sunshine, Castro and Jesse Jackson, the three of them just talking about religion.

Sunshine concedes, “There is no average day in my life. In fact there is nothing routine about anything in my life.”

On this occasion in particular I witness Sunshine in the throes of carrying out his craft.

Ken Sunshine, is caught in the middle of a “mediated crisis intervention” involving a high-profile celebrity client. In common tongue, that means the press has gotten hold of something that, if published, will damage the client’s image.

The identity of the client remains undisclosed, but the stakes are apparent.

“I’ve heard a lot of crazy shit in my time,” he snarled at the receiver. The cell phone on the desk in front of him vibrates incessantly. He’s thinking of hiring an investigator—-it must be serious.

“What can I say, I’m just the PR genius!”

Sunshine admits to thriving on chaos: “When things are crazy, it makes me calm and when things are calm, it makes me crazy. That’s my modus operandi,” he had told me as we drove across the Williamsburg Bridge on our previous meeting.

But he does reserve one outlet for the stress of this high- pressured business. He is a big Yankee fan and will be turning down 18 other event invitations tonight to be at the stadium. He will have time to poke his head in at a media party before the game, probably employing the excuse, “I have a meeting in the Bronx.”

Sunshine insists that he can carry on, doing this job forever.

He says, “People my age talk about doctors and ailments and how depressed they are. While they’re slowing down I’m speeding up.”

It seems counterintuitive for tenants to hope that the landlord never replaces the roof or the boiler. But tenants in rent stabilized apartments in New York City worry that their landlord will use improvements to raise the rents, sometimes substantially.

Susan Brownmiller, a writer and longtime West Village resident, is one of those tenants. She got a notice in 2005 that her landlord had applied for a rent increase based on work that was done to the building. Unlike many less educated tenants in similar situations, she decided to fight it.

A Major Capitol Improvement, or MCI, is a building-wide improvement that benefits all the tenants in the building. It must be done by a contractor who is not related to the building owner in any way, and necessary city permits must have been obtained before the work begins, according to state Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) officials.

Landlords are entitled to recoup the entire cost of the improvement over an 84 months period, and after that period is over, the rent increase remains permanent.

“It definitely can be used as a displacement strategy,” said Mario Mazzoni, the lead organizer at the Metropolitan Council on Housing.

Long-term tenants who should be protected by rent stabilization laws are nonetheless displaced by rising rents as landlords do multiple MCIs that add up to substantial increases. Unfortunately for these tenants, often the landlord’s actions are completely legal.

Mazzoni feels that “Fraud definitely occurs on a regular basis in regards to major capitol improvement.” Fraud can mean improvements that were not done, or not done to the whole building, as required. Landlords also sometimes own the companies that do the improvements, which is much harder for tenants to discover.

A DHCR official who did not want to be identified agreed that outright fraud is not uncommon. She cited a case in Upper Manhattan where one building of a development received a new roof, but a rent increase application was filed for a neighboring building in the development that had never had a scaffolding put up, let alone the roof replaced. As soon as the tenants challenged the rent increase, the landlord retracted the application. There are no consequences or fines for the landlord for having submitted a fraudulent rent increase application.

“If the paperwork is filled out properly, and the landlord has done the work, it is very difficult to contest,” said Bob Kalin, a tenant organizer. Mazzoni said “In order to counter, tenants have to do an extraordinary amount of research, hire a lawyer, an architect and an engineer, and learn a whole new part of the law.”

In Brownmiller’s case, her building’s tenants, who are generally well educated, decided to do that research. Brownmiller has the penthouse apartment, and the workers used her terrace as a staging area. As a result, she heard a lot of the banter among the engineers and the construction workers. “I could see the tension between the young man who worked for SuperStructure and the work crew,” she said. It was clear to her that the work crew did not think the engineer knew what he was doing.

A little research showed that the man introduced as “our building’s architectural engineer” was not actually qualified as an engineer. His advanced degree was a Master’s of Fine Arts.

More importantly, it was difficult to understand the paper trail between the landlord and the architectural firm. Work orders didn’t match checks, and the work orders often were vague, making it difficult to understand how much had been paid or even what work had been done.

The tenants prepared a rebuttal and challenged the MCI. Two years later, they learned that their rebuttal had been denied. The rent was increased $11.99 per room. The notification read like a form letter, leading Brownmiller and her neighbors to think the DHCR had not even read their reply. They vowed to appeal.

If the landlord did actually do work, it is difficult to challenge an MCI when tenants feel that the work is of poor quality or that the cost was excessive. “It is almost impossible to challenge these [MCIs] unless you have an affidavit from an architect or engineer,” said Kalin. “If the landlord has an engineer or architect, they [DHCR] will always give more credence to the landlord.”

DHCR is the state agency responsible for approving or denying any landlord’s application to raise rents based on a MCI. The DHCR official who wished to remain anonymous said “The MCI is going to be approved if the work was done and everything was proper… If someone shows proof that he [the landlord] hasn’t done the work, he won’t be approved.” The official allowed, however, that if the work was done, but poorly, it was very difficult for tenants to fight.

“The deadlines themselves can be deadly,” said Mazzoni. Tenants are given 21 days to respond when a landlord applies for a rent increase based on an MCI, and then 35 days  to appeal the decision once the increase has been approved. The DHCR official estimates that less than 10 percent of the landlord applications are contested during the 21 days before the rent increase is approved, but “once the increase order is issued, they come running in here like their shoes are on fire.” At that point, to win an appeal the tenants would have to prove that the work was not actually done.

Brownmiller and her neighbors did file an appeal, and six months later, they were rewarded with a reversal. In the rent increase denial, the same points Brownmiller and her neighbors had argued were reiterated, gratifying them that the letter had been read. One of the main reason the rent increase was denied was that although there were receipts for the work, they did not match the work orders or the canceled checks, throwing doubt on the authenticity of all of the documents.

“There are two things that people complain about,” said John Swauger, of the Washington Heights Inwood Coalition. “The say that the landlord did not maintain the building, and therefore had to do a major improvement… and they usually don’t believe the amount.” The first issue, while perhaps not ethical, is legal under New York State law, provided that there was no disruptions in service (such as elevators that did not work, or leaking roofs). Regarding the amount, there is little tenants can do if the landlord has receipts showing how much was paid.

There are limits to how frequently landlords can replace certain items. DHCR publishes a list of the expected useful life of various building components. A shingle roof is expected to last at least 20 years, a cast iron boiler should last 35 years. DHCR rejects MCI rent increases for items that are not old enough unless the landlord is able to convince them that a waiver should be granted.

Housing advocates are pushing for new legislation that would limit the amount of money that landlords can collect for MCIs to the actual amount they paid for the improvement, and make them rent surcharges that are not considered part of the base rent. Until then, DHCR’s advice to tenants is to respond immediately if they receive notice that their landlord has applied for MCI-related rent increases.

As the heavy double doors swing open, a black figure emerges out of the thick smoke which pours into the giant stadium. On his face is a look of grim determination, highlighted by a giant spotlight which rotates above the ceiling. In his hands, a weapon sharp enough to incapacitate any living object.

In the middle of the stadium, his opponent waits for him, wearing a similar garment with two criss-crossed blades stitched above his left breast. They face each other, preparing for battle.

With one grand, sweeping motion, the chairman whips off a thick covering, unveiling a table piled high with an ingredient which will determine the course of their lives for the next hour. Bell peppers.

This is Kitchen Stadium, and the two chefs are poised for Battle Bell Peppers. The table is a colorful assortment of red, green, yellow, and orange, encompassing every kind of bell pepper imaginable. In just one hour, they will create a 5-course meal for the expert panel of judges, gaining creativity points for innovations such as bell pepper cocktails and bell pepper sorbet.

For one of the contenders, this is just the first of many more battles to come. And each time, he will have 60 minutes to prove that he rightfully belongs in Kitchen Stadium as he attempts to beat the greatest culinary minds in America. He is Marc Forgione, and he is the newest addition to Kitchen Stadium — the Next Iron Chef.

After eight grueling weeks of competition, the 31-year-old chef was recently announced on nationwide television as the winner of the Food Network’s The Next Iron Chef, beating out nine other contestants for the acclaimed title. Now he takes his place next to culinary giants Bobby Flay and Masaharu Morimoto as a permanent fixture on the world’s greatest cooking stage, Kitchen Stadium.

As the son of the legendary Chef Larry Forgione — referred to widely as the Godfather of American cuisine — the younger Forgione has proven to be his own culinary trailblazer. He was the youngest American born chef-owner to receive a Michelin star for his restaurant in 2009, and he has since added a 2nd Michelin star to his repertoire.

With his new title as the Next Iron Chef, Forgione has been catapulted into the public spotlight, his popularity rising with each appearance on-screen. Recently, people have flocked to his restaurant in Tribeca to taste his food firsthand and catch a glimpse of his signature mohawk.

But the last time he was in the public spotlight, it was far less glamorous.

Six months ago, Forgione was the subject of a blog on the New York Times Diner’s section titled “Why I got Kicked Out of a Restaurant on Saturday Night” – a post which sparked controversy among foodies nationwide, prompting 489 readers to post comments stating their own opinions.

The author, New York Times writer Ron Lieber, had gone for dinner at Marc Forgione’s namesake restaurant in lower Manhattan three days earlier. He never made it past the amuse-bouche.

At that point, Lieber heard Forgione yelling at one of his staff because the appetizers were prepared too soon. So Lieber got up, went to the kitchen and confronted the chef.

Lieber reprimanded Forgione for making the diners uncomfortable whereas Forgione shot back that it was rude to come into his kitchen. In the end, Forgione dismissed Lieber from his restaurant.

At the time, Forgione didn’t know the incident would be featured in the paper several days later. While half the public took his side, agreeing that “the kitchen is a sacred place”, the other half supported Lieber’s actions (“Forgione should learn to better control his temper,” said one post.)

Needless to say, this was not the type of publicity normally beneficial for a fine-dining restaurant.

But months after the incident, Forgione – sporting his signature mohawk (which he jokes makes his noise look smaller), smiles when he recalls the incident.

“I sometimes want to send him a bouquet of flowers,” he laughs.

This unconventional attitude has something to do with Forgione’s live-and-let-go approach, which governs a lot of what he does (he bought the reprimanded staffer a beer after service that night).

But more so, it has to do with how he credits the publicity from the incident, good or bad, for pushing him over the edge of consideration into the final spot on The Next Iron Chef.

Forgione explains that it was between him and three other contenders for the last spot. “It was great timing. When they read that, they were like, ‘Oh, well, maybe he’ll add some drama to the show.’”

Forgione got the call confirming his spot on the show the week before Memorial Day weekend, and flew out to Los Angeles the following Monday. As cameras started rolling, Forgione proved to be more about creating quality food than creating kitchen drama.

The public started to see what close friends and staff of Forgione’s already knew: He doesn’t care about drama or the spotlight. Chef Forgione simply wants to make exquisitely delicious food.

Forgione’s culinary talent is as much in his background as it is in his blood line. He was born in New York City and raised on Long Island, the son of culinary visionary Chef Larry Forgione.

“Most people think I grew up eating foie gras and truffles for dinner,” the younger Forgione says. “It wasn’t like that.”

According to Forgione, he didn’t know his dad was famous until he was 16 years old. At that age, he got a job working in the kitchen of An American Place in New York City, his father’s wildly popular restaurant in the 1980s and 1990s.

After earning a degree in Restaurant and Hotel Management from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the younger Forgione spent the next several years studying under acclaimed chefs such as Patricia Yeo and Laurent Tourondel.

He traveled to France for a year to study classical French technique under Michelle Guerard in three of his fine-dining restaurants. It wasn’t easy.

“They were like, ‘Who is this young punk from America coming into our kitchen?’” Forgione recalls. “I was like that annoying little kid that wouldn’t go away.”

Forgione decided to just “put his head down and cook,” and eventually gained their trust and confidence in his cooking ability.

Upon returning to the States, he linked up with Laurent Tourondel again and was appointed as chef de cuisine of BLT Prime — Tourondel’s signature line of modern bistros.

“He had passion and creativity,” said Chef Tourondel. “I was really passionate too, so it just clicked.”

At 28 years old, Forgione traveled the world opening up BLT chains as their corporate chef and working closely alongside Chef Tourondel.

But he had his own ideas.

In 2008, after laying down the ground work for a dining concept and meeting managing partner Christopher Blumlo, he was set to open his debut restaurant, Marc Forgione, in New York City. Except for one problem: money.

“I started cooking at people’s apartments and asked them to bring their checkbooks,” Forgione says. “Most restaurateurs have money first. I did everything backwards.”

Financial worries would be a plague during the restaurant’s first year of operations, along with other issues.

The weekend of the restaurant opening in the summer of 2008, Forgione was hospitalized with an intestinal infection.

“We opened the floodgates and we weren’t ready,” he recalls now. “In the long run, we should have held, but we had no money left.”

A series of subpar reviews blighted the initial confidence Forgione had in the restaurant’s success. Then came the recession.

“The second or third week of November, the dining room was completely empty,” Forgione recollects, conjuring images of the pilgrims and the first winter. “Somehow, someway, we made it through that year, made it through the winter, made it all the way through the summer. But we’d been losing money hand over fist.”

In October of 2009, he decided he had no choice but to sell.

That same week, however, he found out that he had received a Michelin star.

“I ripped up the offer,” he says. “This is what we had been waiting for.”

The timing was a gift. The recession lightened, New Yorkers started spending again, and the restaurant began bringing in more and more business.

Now, with two Michelin stars and a recent 2-star review from the New York Times under his belt, Forgione credits that first star with saving his restaurant, as he credits the incident with Rob Lieber for propelling him onto the Next Iron Chef.

Prepping in his kitchen before the wave of Friday-night patrons, Chef Forgione bears no hint of the celebrity that might accompany one who just wrapped up appearances on WPIX and the Rachael Ray show.

Dressed in a dark chef’s uniform with a strip of short hair decorating an otherwise buzzcut head, the subtle roughness of his appearance mimics the rustic nature of his restaurant — described recently by New York Times’ restaurant critic Sam Sifton as “a brick-walled neighborhood spot glittering with candlelight and the promise of a third date going well.”

The rugged stone walls of the restaurant paired with detailed touches of elegance (romantic white candles line the west-facing bar) is fitting for a man who is never too delicate with his words (“Why the f*** is the kitchen so loud?!” during our interview) but who can arrange a dish with picasso-like precision and artistry.

Tonight, the menu includes a tender pork tenderloin with matsutake mushrooms and creamy barbeque-baked oysters sprinkled with sea salt and bacon powder.

In the kitchen, Chef Forgione has just finished plating a new addition to the menu — pan-roasted Long Island duck breast with butternut squash, celery root puree, and homemade foie gras tortellini.  The staff, gathered together around the stainless steel countertop before service starts, dig into the bite-sized pieces that Forgione has cut. They comment on the texture and taste of the dish, eventually digressing into a debate about duck’s position in the hierarchy of meat.

“I’m not saying that I hate duck, but out of everything on the menu, it’d be the last meat I think of,” says general manager Matthew Conway, who has worked with Forgione for the last two and a half years. He offers me a bite, and I accept. It’s delicious.

This is the concept of the restaurant, Forgione explains to me. The menu is constantly updated with dishes that are a collaboration of the staff, incorporating new combinations and new inspirations.

To illustrate, Forgione pulls out a scrap of paper that has a scribbling of new combinations for dishes he recently thought of – one features veal tongue, an ingredient he has not previously cooked with.

His inspiration? A pastrami sandwich on rye he had that day.

“He’s a brilliant mind when it comes to ingredients, how they taste and mix and how to combine different flavor profiles,” says Conway.

Conway continues to speak of the restaurant as if it’s an army going to war each night with Forgione at the helm.

“He’s the type of guy you’d certainly want to go to battle with whether it’s restaurant service or a street fight, because he brings in a hundred and ten percent every night,” says Conway.

And now, Forgione will be using that spirit of battle to fight the wars in Kitchen Stadium as he advances his culinary career and faces a rising celebrity status.

“I think he’ll be very successful because he has a very creative mind,” said Chef Tourondel. “He’s come a long way and he deserves it.”

The ability to invent dishes and a fearlessness toward timing and execution are just the tools he needs to rise to the top in Kitchen Stadium.

“If you can’t get inspired by becoming the Next Iron Chef then someone should check your pulse,” Forgione said in a recent episode. “Because you know this is it. It’s game time.”

Since a parent discovered toxic chemicals in the window caulk of his child’s Westchester school two years ago, the city has found high levels of PCBs in 19 more schools. But officials have made little or no progress in removing the chemical, parents and environmental activists say.

Meanwhile, scientists have been saying that sustained exposure to Polychlorinated Biphenyls, or PCBs, in the air in schools could lead to myriad problems, including learning disabilities and cancer.

In fact, although Jonathan Davis, legislative director for Assemb. Linda Rosenthal, D-Upper West Side, estimates harmful levels of PCBs are in 700 city schools, the city’s Department of Education and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have consented to only a pilot study of five schools (one in each borough), of which three have been tested so far.

The pilot study was conducted as a result of an out of court settlement when Naomi Gonzalez, a Bronx parent, sued the city in 2009 for refusing to remove caulk from public schools. Although Gonzalez was the sole plaintiff, the coalition of New York Communities for Change and New York Lawyers for the Public Interest was involved with the suit. In the settlement, the Department of Education agreed to launch this five-school pilot study with the EPA.

In the meantime, Harvard University’s Dr. Robert Herrick has raised additional concerns about PCBs, pointing out that there is a possibility the toxins can invisibly and spontaneously enter the air from the caulk.

“This material is 40 to 50 years old and has been sitting out in the rain, wind, and sun, breaking down, getting released into the air, leading to air and soil contamination,” said Herrick, a senior lecturer on Industrial Hygiene at the Harvard School of Public Health. “It’s not just enough to take out the old caulk. We have to grind out the masonry surrounding it.”

PCBs can reduce IQ by up to 5 to 7 points in children exposed in the womb or early in life, according to a study by Dr. David Carpenter, director of the Institute for Health and the Environment, at the University of Albany.

Joel Kupferman, executive director and senior attorney at the Environmental Law and Justice Project, said, “The EPA considers the levels to be the same for children and adults, but actually children are 10 times more vulnerable to the toxin than adults.”

However, a statement emailed by the Department of Education spokeswoman Natalie Ravitz says, “Experts have said there is no immediate health threat, and we believe it would be irresponsible to move forward with a city-wide plan—which potentially carries a billion dollar price tag—before we have better information and complete this pilot project.”

Although the EPA claims there is no immediate danger, experts on the other side of the debate argue that an immediate risk is not the same as a serious one.

“There is no safe level of PCBs. Any amount of PCBs increases your risk,” said Herrick.

Carpenter added, “The major root of exposure is by breathing these substances in.”

Parents argue that whether a risk is “immediate” is not a primary concern when children and teachers are exposed to the air in schools for at least 30 hours a week.

The situation has reached a stalemate, with city officials saying more testing is needed before significant steps can be taken, and environmental activists and parents saying the city should take action immediately.

The Department of Education’s press secretary said the city is merely following the steps it had laid out at the beginning of the year.

“We need to do the work when students are not in schools,” Ravitz said. “We completed three schools this past summer and have two to do this coming summer. This always was part of the plan.”

But parents are getting more worried the longer it takes.

“We are talking about children who spend 30-plus hours in school. Why are we dancing around this issue?” said Veronica Vanterpool, a parent at PS 178 in the Bronx, one of the schools that tested positive for high levels of PCBs.

Furthermore, the EPA issued an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rule Making suggesting lowering the safety guidelines for PCBs from their current level of 50 parts per million.

If such a rule-change were to pass, more schools with PCBs in the air could escape their obligation to clean them up. The EPA cited no change in the risk level presented by the PCBs, instead citing that “the recent realization that the use of PCBs in caulk may be widespread and may be an undue burden for schools if the exclusion continues at 50ppm.”

“We don’t think decisions about the health of students, teachers and workers should be based purely on economic reasons,” said Joel Shufro, executive director of the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health.

EPA Region 2 Press Officer Mary Mears said that the 50ppm standard was not based on risk levels and is actually a conservative estimate.

“Those levels are based on a longer term exposure and are not reflective of an immediate health risk,” she said. “The levels that we set are based on a very conservative estimate of potentially seven or eight years.” She stressed that the rule change is in a very early stage, and that more public input would be sought before any regulatory changes are made.

Although PCBs have been banned since 1979, it is only in recent years that anyone has thought to test for them in schools.

In 2004, Danny Lefkowitz, a parent of a student at French Hill Elementary School in Westchester County, tested a piece of caulk from his son’s school after reading about PCBs in a Harvard study by Herrick. Lefkowitz found levels of PCB 760 times greater than EPA safety guidelines. With the help of the Westchester Department of Health, Lefkowitz and French Hill acted to clean up the school, at a cost of around $600,000, according to Lefkowitz.

In February 2008, Lefkowitz contacted the Daily News, who then investigated nine city schools for elevated levels of PCBs in the caulking and light ballasts. Of these nine, six tested positive, showing PCB levels above 50 parts per million, the legal limit imposed by EPA safety guidelines, in the caulking of windows.

The city’s Department of Education, following up on this investigation, found high levels of the toxin in another 19 schools. According to the Daily News, testing also showed soil contamination around 15 of the 19 schools with toxic caulk. Since this initial testing, however, the DOE has slowed down its actions.

According to Ravitz’ statement, “Right now, we are in the middle of a pilot program with EPA, and, while we are gaining valuable information, we don’t yet have final results of the testing and remediation work done in the three schools this summer.  During the pilot project—which was originally focused on building caulk—we discovered that old lighting ballasts were an additional source of PCBs.  That’s why we spent $3 million replacing all of the lighting fixtures at two schools this summer.  While most PCB levels came down, some rooms actually had higher PCB levels after we replaced the ballasts.  So we don’t have all of the answers yet.

But Davis at Assemb. Rosenthal’s office said, “The DOE has been reluctant to do this at every step of the way, and they only agreed under pain of lawsuit.”

No one disagrees that PCBs are dangerous. Many federal and private studies show that they cause birth defects and cancer in laboratory-tested animals, and they are a “suspected cause of cancer and adverse skin and liver effects in humans,” according to a statement made by the EPA on the day of the ban, April 19, 1979.

PCBs were manufactured by Monsanto from 1929-’79. Although PCBs have not been manufactured since the ban, they were so widely used for decades that they became ubiquitous. According to the EPA’s website, due to their valuable physical and chemical properties, “PCBs were used in hundreds of industrial and commercial applications including electrical, heat transfer, and hydraulic equipment; as plasticizers in paints, plastics, and rubber products; in pigments, dyes, and carbonless copy paper; and many other industrial applications.”

Though PCBs were banned over 30 years ago, they are still highly prevalent in the environment due to their high physical and chemical stability, according to Dr. Amir Miodovnik of the Pediatric Environmental Health Department at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

The EPA lists a long number of products built between 1929 and 1979 that may contain PCBs including electrical equipment such as voltage regulators and switches; old electrical devices or appliances containing PCB capacitors; cable insulation; thermal insulation material including fiberglass, felt, foam and cork; adhesives and tapes; oil-based paint; plastics; carbonless copy paper, and floor finish.

Now, the major concern is the omnipresent caulk.

Schools are not the only places built using PCBs. According to Miranda Massie, chief litigator at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, they are probably in hospitals, public housing, and government buildings as well, but no tests have been conducted yet. The coalition New York Communities for Change plans to move on to the other buildings after it has fought the battle over the schools.

“Getting PCB-free schools is an important first step,” said Massie, “but it is by no means the final step.”

When builders were applying layers of the sticky white substance to seal gaps on window and doorframes, no one guessed that it had such dangerous properties.

Although the caulk does degrade, becoming brittle and flaking in the sunlight, not all dangerous caulk is visibly degraded. PCBs can volatilize into the air from caulk that appears completely intact.

“The EPA made a major mistake when they put on the website that you should be concerned about caulking that’s deteriorating,” said Lefkowitz. “The school districts see caulking that’s intact and they think they’re safe. And that’s totally not true.”

“We’re going to keep making noise until it’s public,” said Sebastian Ulanga, a Bronx parent. “Right now we’re building steam. It’s only a matter of time before someone has to pay the bills.”

Whether they are paid by Monsanto, the Department of Education or the taxpayers, the bills for removing the PCBs will be steep.

“There’s all sorts of ways around this,” said Anjali Kochar, another Bronx parent. “It’s a question of whether there’s a will. We need a political will, otherwise it will never happen.”

Entirely dressed in black and with a cream stole falling from her shoulders, her short gray hair neatly combed to the side, the Rev. Pat Bumgardner was doing what she likes most: preaching. One of the two readings she chose for a recent Sunday service was a single paragraph from the Gospel of Mark, which she still managed to refine, concentrating on the sentence where Jesus tells his disciples, “Go to the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; follow him.”

Those straightforward instructions didn’t seem much to sustain a sermon, but as Bumgardner unveiled hers, challenging dismissive scholars on the way, the simple act of carrying a water jar gained a peculiar meaning. “This was a man doing a woman’s work in a society strictly defined by gender specific roles and regulations,” she said in a raising pitch. “But little attention is paid to this guy,” she went on, “who we know is somehow whether gay or trans or just a gender-bender somehow ours.”

Startling as it might be to a more orthodox Christian, such interpretation of the Bible is typical of Bumgardner’s preaching. Her sermons are full of transgender, from Biblical to present times. Not a Sunday goes by that she doesn’t raise from the lectern the need to end persecution against gays, to improve policies concerning AIDS, to repeal “don’t ask don’t tell,” to promote marriage equality — her exhortations entwined with mentions to gay rights activists and victims of hate crimes. Sometimes applause and cheering interrupt her speech, and in those moments the religious ritual reminds a civil rally. This mix of spirituality and activism is a trademark of her denomination. But more than for her church, Bumgardner speaks for herself. “Faith without work is death” is a quote she likes repeating.

Bumgardner, 57, has been for 23 years the pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church of New York (MCCNY). Located at West 36th Street, in a three-story brick building that on Sundays displays a rainbow flag, the church proclaims its mission to be the “spiritual home for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community, open to all.” During Bumgardner’s tenure, however, it has gone beyond the spiritual, at least for the youth who sleep in the emergency shelter run on its first floor, or the poor who collect the 5,000 meals its pantry service distributes every month. As chairman of the global ministry of the Metropolitan Community Church denomination (MCC), Bumgardner travels around the United States and abroad in the defense of the marginalized, gays or not. She leads a team that tries to influence U.S. policies and she speaks at protests; she helps underground groups in countries such as Pakistan, where being gay is still a taboo.

“Part of my job is to organize and get MCC connected with social activism in the world, and to build a network of people who are working for social justice,” she said.

The church is about to incorporate a global justice institute to work out of its same building in midtown. She envisions the new organization as “a site for people around the globe who wants to come for retreat or training,” as well as a coordinating center for other NGOs abroad, such as the one the church already has in South Africa.

“My dream is to build the global justice institute and to run that side by side with the church,” she said.

Bumgardner travels regularly to places such as China, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Pakistan and South Africa, where she meets with foreign chapters of MCC, as in Malaysia, and transgender organizations, sometimes secret ones, as in Pakistan. Next year she also plans to go to Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya. By extending the church’s reach to gay communities that are at highest risk, she is following her belief that there’s no point in advancing the gay movement in the United States, if others are left behind.

“What good is it if I can get married in this country and the trans people I am working with in Pakistan can’t even go to the market safely and put food on the table?” she said.

Willing as she always is to support the ones who felt discriminated, Bumgardner’s message to them is more of endurance than compassion. She urges people to fight and stand by what they are, just like she does.

“She is not going to be ‘poor you, you didn’t get a bike,’ she is going to be ‘suck it up,’” said Carolyn Traoré, a singer of the church’s choir.

Bumgardner’s upbringing in the rural Midwest, subjected to the whims of a “brutal father,” and the difficulties she faced after leaving home at 17, are probably behind her eagerness to show people that their situation is usually not as bad as they think.

Raised in different farms at northeast Indiana, Bumgardner said an aunt taught her to appreciate the beauty of the mass. “I was always drawn to the church, attracted to the church,” she said, trying to explain how since a young age she felt “called to be a priest.”

She was a senior in high school when she ran away from home, being soon followed by her only brother. They both got into college at Fort Wayne, and managed to maintain themselves through scholarships and part-time jobs (she majored in French and math). It was then that a family encouraged her to join a theology center in the city and supported her while she was there, and later after she moved to the Catholic Theology Union at Chicago.

After finishing seminary, Bumgardner came to New York in 1979. Since she could not become a deacon as her male colleagues, in order to receive her degree she worked for a year on a court referred home for teenage boys.

“All this time in New York I was looking for a Catholic community to belong to because I believed that I was called to be a priest, and I thought that I would probably just give my life fighting for women to be priests,” she said.

But Bumgardner eventually realized that in a Catholic parish she “could just be there and be in a pew, but would never be allowed to do anything.” She felt it was no accident that she finally discovered MCCNY, a church where she could fulfill her desire to preach and reach out to people.

“I began to believe, through prayer and discernment, that I was right about my calling to be a priest, but wrong about the venue,” she said.

She came to MCCNY in 1981 and worked for five years as worship coordinator and assistant pastor. In 1986 she was ordained. A year later she became the church’s senior pastor. Today she leads a church with more than 500 formal members, and is proud of the social work they do there, the food pantry and the emergency shelter.

The “Sylvia’s Place” shelter is named after legendary transgender activist Sylvia Rivera, who ran the food pantry in the church until her death, in February 2002. Lucky Michaels, 30, the shelter’s director, said it has today 26 residents and 15 to 50 daily drop-ins, who come for a meal and a shower.

“The drop-in clients are comprised of a few different subgroups of LGBTQI homeless youth, including youth that engage in sex for survival or sex work because of the lack of services being provided them,” he said.  (The mnemonic mentioned by Michaels added “queer” and “intersex” to the more common LGBT: lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender.)

The LGBT community is well represented in the church’s three Sunday services. Gay couples enjoy the freedom to express their affection. They sit close together; they hold hands on their way to receive the communion; they embrace to listen to the prayers; they bring their children to be blessed.

Dayse Lopez, 45, a transsexual, once had tears in her eyes during the Eucharist. She said the ceremony still brings back bad memories of her old church in her Connecticut hometown. “That church was oppressive,” she said. “They want my baptism to be retracted. This church re-baptized me in my new gender.”

Bob Ferrara, 55, a gay man from Queens, said that the MCC has “a message of acceptance, hope and faith.”

The two people closest to Bumgardner are a regular presence in the 11 a.m. service. One is her brother Charles, 56. The other is Mary Jane Gibney, 66, Bumgardner’s partner for 24 years. Bumgardner and Gibney live in an apartment in the West Village with their dog, a black miniature poodle named Lily.

Bumgardner said she was already in MCCNY when, at 27, she became conscious of her sexual orientation, but she attributed that discovery more to the city than to the church. “I think it was coming to New York and having the freedom, for the first time in my life, to pay attention to myself,” she said. Yet Bumgardner didn’t want to engage in a relationship without making sure it had a future. “No matter what people say, they expect clergy to be monogamous, faithful and all those things,” she said. She and Gibney developed a solid friendship before they became partners.

Being a model for the others seems to be a serious concern to Bumgardner. John Fischer, the church’s music director, said he’s got “the sense that she puts pressure on herself to be an example.”

“She could stand to be more self-indulging,” he said.

After more than 20 years as pastor, Bumgardner doesn’t see herself so soon relinquishing her position. She still talks about “building the church,” and even if she wants to have more time for her global justice activities, she said she wouldn’t give up preaching.

That’s a passion she exercises with pungent words and rhythmic movements. During her sermons, she sways back and forward, shifting her weight from left to right. As she twists to the left, her right foot moves forward and her right arm extends, the flattened hand cutting the air, the voice reaching the maximum volume. Then foot and arm retract, she twists to the right, the left foot moves forward and so on, in a kind of dance without music.

Her listeners would find it comic if their attention wasn’t so fixed on her words. Those can swing quickly from the Bible to the Stonewall riots, stopping for a minute to make fun of John McCain or to chastise Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Her speech is a mix of religion and activism stirred with irony, but whose ultimate message, despite all the belligerence, is love.

“When she preaches, she teaches,” said Tonie Boykin, 36, who has been attending the services for two years. “She not only talks about religion, but also explains what’s happening in the world.”

On the night of Dec. 17, Bumgardner gathered with her staff for the church’s annual holiday dinner. Feeding Lily with pieces of chicken while watching people unwrap gifts, making occasional jokes, she looked casual and relaxed. But an hour later, walking stiff on her way out of the building, covered with a coat down to her knees, she was again the stoic pastor of the church. There was something old fashioned in her lean, mannish figure, all donned in black, about to get on the driving seat of a dark 1999 Lincoln — something that contrasted with the modern causes she so fiercely fights for.

“I think it’s a matter of time. The truth is that queer people around the globe have come to life,” she once said, concluding that LGBT people will eventually reshape society.

One may wonder what a combative spirit like the reverend will do in a world where everybody is treated as equal.

Luckily for her, there is still a lot of fighting to be done.

West Coast on the East Coast: Surfing Long Island from Ashley Dean on Vimeo.

If you didn’t know better, you’d probably roll your eyes at Lio Kanine and grumble to yourself about Williamsburg hispters. Your mistake. Big mistake.

He’s thin and looks like he’s in his 20s, black hair swept to the right and resting just above his dark brown eyes. On a cool autumn day, he’s wearing narrow – but not too tight – black jeans, purple and black sneakers, a green Silly Band ring, and a grey sweater over an indie band T-shirt. He looks like the other 20-somethings sulking around Williamsburg, declaring their music collections to be the best and buying records without a record player to drop them on.

Here’s the big difference: Lio’s music collection is better than yours. And that band T-shirt he’s wearing? He made that band famous.

Lio Kanine looks at one of his band's recent records.

Lio Kanine, who is actually 37, created and runs Kanine Records, the independent label that broke some of the newest and biggest indie bands. He discovered and signed Grizzly Bear, Chairlift and Surfer Blood – and those are just the top three sellers. Kanine Records boasts 35 artists, including the high-energy, rhythm-heavy group Professor Murder, the duo on every instrument imaginable known as Pepper Rabbit, and the dream-pop trio The Depreciation Guild.

Lio and his partner, 33-year-old Kay Kanine, work to make each of their artists successful from their Brooklyn apartment, where they are surrounded by shelves filled with hundreds of records. And yes, they have a record player to listen to them.

It’s a disservice to Lio to name only a handful of his label’s artists, though. To do so is almost to suggest that he runs Kanine Records like a major label – funneling tons of time, effort and money into the most famous acts while the lesser-knowns struggle for attention. But, he says, he’s not interested in the artists as money makers, and he’s not interested in their music as a product. Of course he depends on the product making money, but it’s not what drives him.

What he is interested in is working with bands that are making music he likes. Quite simply, he’s just thrilled to be surrounded by talented musicians.

“The best job you can find is turning your hobby into a job,” he said. “I never thought I was gonna have my own record label.”

Growing Up Indie

Lio was born in Cocoa Beach, Fla., to an Army family that moved to San Juan, Denver and San Antonio before finally settling in Orlando. After graduating high school, he attended Florida State University, and it was there he realized he wanted to work in music.

As a member of the Student Campus Entertainment group, he worked the door at small clubs, drove the bands the group booked for shows, and hung posters. Meanwhile, he was making regular five-hour drives to Atlanta to see concerts. He eventually became one of the students who booked the shows for the main campus venue, a club with a 200-person capacity.

“I found out that I really loved it, being around the bands,” he said.

After college, Lio briefly lived in Atlanta and worked as a DJ, but found that there were no other opportunities there. He then moved to New York City, where he had a slew of jobs in the music business.

The one that stuck was at Alternative Distribution Alliance, the top distribution company for indie labels in the U.S. During this time, his record label was a slowly developing side project. After seven years, Lio felt the job “got old,” but he had made enough connections and enough money to work on Kanine Records full time.

Lio Kanine with one of his dogs, Hbear.

Though the timeline is all a bit fuzzy to Lio, he remembers that he met Kay in 2001, before he went full time with Kanine Records. She wanted to put out a record for a band called Bunsen Honeydew (now known as Four Volts), but instead, they ended up creating an album featuring 20 up-and-coming Brooklyn bands. The record drew some attention from the press and as far away as England, and the bands wanted to keep recording with Lio and Kay.

The big break came in 2005, though, when Kanine Records signed the now-famous indie quartet, Grizzly Bear. The group has been hugely successful:  It’s third album, “Veckatimest” (2009) reached No. 8 on the U.S. Billboard 200 pop chart, marking the band’s first Top 10 appearance (an especially big accomplishment for an indie band). Grizzly Bear has played numerous festivals, including Coachella, Lollapalooza, Pitchfork Music Fesitval, Bonnaroo, and South by Southwest. The band has collaborated or shared the stage with the likes of Radiohead, the Dirty Projectors, Paul Simon and more.

Lio and Kay had no shortage of work after that. They were busy signing bands like Oxford Collapse and Professor Murder, both of which, Lio said garnered the label some attention from the press and the music world.

In 2006, Kanine Records signed Chairlift, another future indie success. The trio, originally from Boulder, Colo., wrote to Lio looking for its break.

When Lio told them to visit Brooklyn to do some shows, they simply moved there.

He started including them in the label’s shows, and in 2008, the band released “Does You Inspire You,” its second album and first under the Kanine label. A song from that album, “Bruises” was featured in an iPod commercial the same year. Among other accomplishments, the band has toured with indie kings Phoenix and played South by Southwest.

Another big success came Lio’s way in 2009, and this band was even more persistent. What’s more persistent than moving across the country? How about calling Lio to reply to a MySpace minutes after it was sent. Or inviting him to a gig, then calling him that night to make sure he’ll be there. Or giving him a demo recorded in a college dorm. Or calling him immediately after he e-mails you and arranging to meet for dinner.

That’s what Surfer Blood did, anyway. Now the band is touring Europe with Interpol, and its first album, “Astro Coast,” reached No. 18 on the Billboard Independent Album chart.

The path between persistent courtship and indie success isn’t so simple, though. After signing a band, Lio and Kay have a long list of things to accomplish:

1. Collect album mixes, art work, logos, T-shirt designs, poster designs, press photos, bios, etc.

2. Set up recording for CDs, vinyls, and digital.

3. Put together a press packet.

4. Record B-sides and remixes to offer for free online.

5. Make a music video.

6. Set up a tour, and send posters to stores and the venues to promote the tour.

7. Promote the record to retail stores.

8. Sometimes promote the record to radio stations.

9. Follow up with the band, making sure they’re keeping up with everything.

Though the label will coordinate most of this work, it’s up to the bands to get the design work and recording done. Many bands create their own album and poster art, for example, or have an artistic friend do it for them. A few don’t, so the label has a handful of artists to turn to. Lio estimated that he helped only about 30 percent of the bands find recording studios. Many of them build their own studios or record using just their laptops.

The artists, he said, need to be their own producers and engineers. The most successful musicians in the indie world are both creative and business-minded, he said.

Grizzly Bear’s Ed Droste, for example, combines the two sides perfectly.

“He’s got an extremely strong business mind, but he’s also a crazy creative genius,” Lio said.

Contracts with indie labels are built upon a number of full-length albums, not years, Lio said. Some indie bands will sign briefly with major labels for “idea deals,” but they don’t stay there. Rather than booking Madison Square Garden, these bands are playing small venues like Arlene’s Grocery, with a $10 cover, or illegal loft spaces in Brooklyn and downtown Manhattan.

These days Lio has his hands full working with Grizzly Bear, Chairlift, Surfer Blood and his 32 other artists. Between January and June 2011, he has album and EP releases planned for Braids, Young Prisms, Surfer Blood, Grooms, and Pepper Rabbit, to name just a few. From Oct. 19 to 23, he was running around the city attending shows that were part of the College Music Journal Music Marathon and Film Festival, much better known as the CMJ Festival. During that week, he signed a new band, X-ray Eyeballs. Since then, the band played a show for about 150 people in a small loft space, and an album is planned for release in March.

The Way They Get By

In the early years, Kanine Records was run out of a 400-square-foot studio apartment. But now, Lio and Kay are working out of their two-story apartment in Williamsburg. Surrounded by typical Italian-American homes – the type that have stone lion statues at the door – the Kanine residence and office is almost indistinguishable but for the stone dog statues.

“We thought, ‘OK, we could get an office,’ but right now this makes sense,” Kay said. Bands are on the road so much, she explained, that bands don’t often come by the office. Instead, the front room of the first floor serves as the label’s office. Their desks are surrounded by shelves full of vinyl records and CDs – Lio estimates they number about 15,000 and 20,000.

His Williamsburg locale could not be better for Lio, or his business. It’s the land of vinyl, from the facades of the apartments to the records sold by both retailers and dudes with vans alike. Hip(ster) 20-somethings roam the streets looking for the newest thing from behind their wayfarers, itching to be the “first” to discover a band.

The neighborhood practically begs for the existence of indie music, and it gets it. Pitchfork, Valley Point Records, Ear Wax Records, the Music Hall of Williamsburg, Brooklyn Bowl, the Glasslands Gallery, and a long list of bands all call Williamsburg home.

“It is the best location in the world to do music,” Lio said of Brooklyn. “I really think at least 60 percent of the world’s best indie bands come from here and play through here. Ninety percent of the press people live and work out of this neighborhood.”

But even in the center of the indie music universe, business can be tough. Independent labels can’t compete with massive, corporate record labels like Columbia Records or Universal Music Group. On top of that, the market for indie music is much smaller, as it is usually relegated to college radio. The Billboard charts show that indie record sales are far below those that top the pop charts. Only the biggest groups, like Phoenix or MGMT, can compete with the Top 40 machine.

“We’re surviving,” Lio said. “There’s always uncertainty to it, doing what I love to get by.”

Most of the money that comes in, he said, is quickly reinvested. He doesn’t pay close attention to the numbers (that’s Kay’s job), but he knows that most of Kanine Records’ sales are digital – not surprising. The next big money makers are the CDs, many of which are still carefully and artistically designed. Many people are still interested in a tangible product, Lio said, quite simply because there is something to see and hold, and it’s clear that a lot of dedication went into the making of it. Kanine Records also releases vinyl records, but makes very little money from them because the production is expensive.

They’re valuable, though, because of what Lio called “the super nerds,” who are very passionate about music and will buy the vinyl, then tell their friends if they like it. Meanwhile, the stores stay interested when they have frequent new arrivals of full records and even seven-inches. It’s all in promotion.

Lio isn’t rolling in riches or living the record executive life of penthouse apartments and pricey cars, but he doesn’t care. He spends what money he has on his dogs, his record collection and seeing shows.

“We lead a pretty humble life,” he said. “But I feel like we’re pretty rich because we live in the coolest neighborhood in the world.”

Williamsburg is not the only neighborhood crawling with musicians. Lio’s job often brings him to the Lower East Side, and on Friday, Oct. 22, Lio is milling around the small, dark basement of Cake Shop. The indie venue, which is a coffee and record shop by day, is playing host to the Official Kanine Records CMJ Party.

Lio Kanine (center) watches his bands perform at Cake Shop during CMJ Fest

The night’s performers are Kanine label bands Grooms, We Are Country Mice, Eternal Summers, Young Prisms, Braids, Pepper Rabbit, Viernes, Dream Diary, and Dino Walrus. The show kicks off at 7 p.m., early for a New York City party, so the first hour’s crowd reaches only about 40 people. But as the night goes on, the little basement gets packed.

The only light in Cake Shop’s basement comes from the Christmas-style lights strung up above the stage, the dim bar lights and a few choice bulbs glowing dimly over the merchandise table. Kanine Records posters have been stuck to the walls, each prominently featuring his dogs, Toby and Hbear.

Lio is making the rounds from the stage, to the bar, to the merchandise table, casually talking with friends, beer in hand. Each drink he gets is promptly slipped into a purple koozie with the Kanine Records logo printed in white. When he visits the stage, he easily works his way to the front row, where he stands nodding his head to the beat and shouts with approval after each song.

“CMJ is hard because there are, like, 200 bands a night” he said in the relative quiet between sets. “These are all new bands, so the turnout is great.”

But any hope of conversation is squashed as another band takes the stage.

“Thanks to Lio and Kay,” the singer yells. “We love you so much.”

Decisively Rad

Asked to describe Lio in just a few words, Pepper Rabbit’s drummer Luc Laurent said:

“Rad.”

He went on to call Lio a “lover of many things such as fine beer, skate boarding, and cool hair cuts. But first and foremost, a lover of great music.”

If anyone has a problem with Lio, either they’re distant from his life, or the positive experiences overshadow the bad.

He’s commonly praised for a specific set of qualities: his haircut, his taste in music, his taste in beer, his outgoing nature, and his decisiveness.

“He knows what he wants and he knows what he likes,” Kay said. “He knows if he likes something right away, so he’ll jump on it right away.”

Laurent, busy wrapping up Pepper Rabbit’s seven-week tour, said in an e-mail, “Working with Lio and Kay isn’t like working with business people. They really get musicians. They get our needs and concerns. They’re aware of the nightmares that musicians feel towards major labels, and they provide much more than money to record and print records. They really have interest in what’s best for our band. They’ve been really honest with their concerns and straight ahead. But with that being said, they’ve given us complete artistic freedom and love, giving us confidence as we’ve grown as a band.”

Dogged Determination

On a chilly autumn afternoon Lio is sitting at a ceramic tiled table in his backyard, sipping juice from a beer mug. His salt and pepper Irish setter mix, a 10-year-old rescue named Hbear, nudges his leg for attention. Meanwhile the 7-year-old straight wiry labradoodle Toby, also a rescue, trots around the cracked concrete barking. Thick, leafy vines specked with small purple flowers cover a wooden fence, but they’re not an intentional act of gardening – they beautified his yard of their own volition.

Toby and Hbear are almost as important at Kanine Records as Lio and Kay. A poster for Kanine Records 2010 CMJ Party prominently featured a picture of Hbear looking out with the classic sad puppy look. Written into a speech bubble just left of her snout: “Hbear says get off the couch and come out and see some rad bands.” Instructions on the label’s website for sending in demos say, “Please do not stop by our house unannounced, the dogs will go crazy.”

Signs of Lio’s love for dogs are everywhere. Kanine is not his real last name, and he does not want to give his real last name. This one is better. The label’s logo is a happy little sketch of a dog of no particular breed, and the website has a widget from Pet Finder that displays a different animal up for adoption each day.

If Lio were a dog, he’d be a setter. He’s quite calm, but simultaneously alert and engaged. His ability to sniff out the best game is uncanny, but he’s not out for the kill. He’s in it for the thrill of the find – for the excitement of discovery. When he finds what he’s looking for, he calls everyones attention to it. And most importantly, he’s happy and utterly sincere in what he does.

“The best part about what I do – what I love – is that I just really get so excited every time a new record comes from the plant. I get to see it and know that i was a part of that and i was part of history,” Lio said. “Maybe one day someone will be like, ‘Hey there was this label Kanine and they put out these cool bands.’ And maybe one day it’ll go belly up but that’s OK. I gave it a good couple years and I did something I always wanted to do.”

Lio Kanine: Influences from Ashley Dean on Vimeo.