That’s strong.
A “greedy” admissions director at the posh Dalton School and her husband, a photographer, are being evicted from their rent-controlled Tribeca apartment after using it as their business address for years, a Manhattan judge ruled.
Judy Calixto, who has worked at the $61,000-a-year Upper East Side school since 2015, and Michael Goldman, whose portfolio includes Israeli actress Mira Tzur and designer Norma Kamali, have been renting the sprawling three-bedroom apartment at 177 Hudson Street since 1978.
They pay a paltry rent of just over $2,000 for a floor that is over 3,000 square feet. In this chic neighborhood, similar apartments cost up to $14,000 a month.
Her landlord, Robert Moskowitz, owner of Manhattan Realty Company 1 LP, became suspicious around 2016 when Goldman began paying rent with checks made out to “Michael Goldman Photography, Inc.” and listing the Hudson Street apartment as the location.
He filed for the couple’s eviction, and his lawyers eventually discovered that Goldman was deducting rent and utilities on his company’s tax return. As a result, a judge ruled late last month that the photographer could not also claim the premises as his primary residence.
The city’s rent control law requires that an apartment must be the tenant’s primary residence, meaning that the tenant must live there for more than half the year.
And the couple, who married in 1986 and have two adult children, own another home in the historic Hudson Valley hamlet of Stone Ridge, according to the July 26 Manhattan Civil Court decision.
“It should outrage every taxpayer that such a happy couple tried to profit from a rent-controlled apartment instead of simply using it as their primary residence, as the law requires,” Moskowitz said.
“The stabilized rent was not enough for them, so they wrongly deducted from the corporate tax,” he added.
The court reiterated that the purpose of rent control laws is to make life in New York City affordable for legitimate renters, “not to enrich greedy people who abuse the system,” he added.
Calixto’s salary at the school is not listed online, but salaries for similar positions are. Dalton’s admissions director earned a salary of $257,540, according to a 2023 filing. The middle school principal received $275,662 and the athletic director received $337,524.
“We are relieved that the court has enforced the law and put an end to an egregious abuse of our city’s rent control laws,” Moskowitz’s attorney Nicole Waknine told the Post.
Goldman’s lawyer, Michael Terk of David Rozenholc & Associates, said an appeal had been filed and a motion would be filed to stay proceedings pending the appeal.
Goldman and Calixto could not be reached for comment. Someone who answered the phone at their home on Friday declined to speak to The Post.
Additional reporting by Georgia Worrell