John Carley Jr. had an enviable setup by most measures: His one-bedroom on a leafy stretch of East 73rd Street was a three-minute walk to Central Park, and the rent, in 2021, was just $1,494 a month. The only problem was Carley was not a senior, and the James Lenox House is a senior-living community. Which is part of the reason he’s now being sued, along with his mother, for at least $2 million by the organization that runs the program.
The apartments at 49 East 73rd have been described as an “oasis” for moderate-income seniors in Manhattan. The building, a no-frills, 12-story brick structure that has 99 units in a mix of studios and one-bedrooms, is operated by the James Lenox House Association, a nonprofit that got its start providing housing for widows in the aftermath of the Civil War. For the past half-century, though, it’s been renting affordable apartments to New Yorkers who meet its income requirements, a maximum of just over $125,000 for a couple who want a one-bedroom, and age minimum — 55.
So how did Carley get in? According to the complaint filed in New York State Supreme Court on May 14, his parents, Catherine and John Sr., applied for a unit when they were 78 and 84, respectively, and claimed to have a combined income of $89,434. The couple was offered a lease starting on May 1, 2018, with a monthly rent of $1,396.72. Except, according to the suit, the two never moved in: Catherine Carley “signed the Lease with no intent to move in, and instead intended that her son, [John] Carley [Jr.], occupy the Apartment.” A neighbor, Rosemarie Aldin, who is 86 and has lived on the third floor for more than a decade, says she never really saw Catherine in the building. (John Sr. has since died, per the suit.) “She came once, I think, and joined the tenants’ association,” Aldin says. “Or pretended to.”
John Jr., on the other hand, was very much around, according to Aldin: “He was very tall, very noisy, full of beer and pot.” According to court documents, around January 2021, the younger Carley began to throw “loud and boisterous parties” in what was supposed to be his parents’ apartment and “frequently engaged in lewd and offensive behavior” in common areas. “All of us were afraid of him, because he was very rowdy,” Aldin says. (Attempts to reach the Carleys for comment were unsuccessful, but in court documents filed by the James Lenox House Association as part of a 2021 eviction case, John Jr. denied the allegations that he had thrown parties, smoked inside, or acted “lewd or offensive” in public.)
The Carleys also, according to the suit, apparently stopped paying rent after May 2021, with the exception of an additional $97 security-deposit check sent in July, despite John Jr. continuing to stay in the apartment. The nonprofit began eviction proceedings in August 2021, and John Jr. left three years later, after the case was settled. The latest legal action stems from the aftermath of the eviction: John Jr. and his mother allegedly still haven’t paid the $77,092 owed in rent for the duration of the eviction case, and the James Lenox House Association also is seeking to recoup legal fees and damages.
This kind of fanfare seems unusual for the building, which residents describe as pretty tranquil and quite the housing deal. (The program has a significant wait list, residents say.) In addition to asking rents that are just a little over a third of the neighborhood median for a one-bedroom, there’s an impressive array of amenities: a library and hairdresser along with day trips organized to nearby institutions like the Met and private performances by New York Pops musicians. “In the middle of Madison Avenue, it’s not bad,” Aldin says of life there. The building’s nonprofit also doesn’t seem especially litigious, either. In 2016, Nancy Rabstejnek Nichols, a member of the James Lenox House Association’s board of directors, told The Wall Street Journal that there was an endowment to cover any potential rent shortfall from a tenant — since those things can happen from time to time. “We never throw anybody out,” she said.
