Photo and blog post by John Hoff
Slumlord Keith Reitman is the "winner, winner, chicken dinner" of the Johnny Northside obsessive blogging project, as previously announced, due to his sad and neglected "blue twin" houses on Penn Ave. N.
But this morning I had to ask myself, "Have I been giving our winner, winner all the bloggy chicken dinner he deserves? What have I done for Keith Reitman lately? More importantly, what do I HAVE on Keith Reitman, lately?"
That's when I remembered an email from Stacy Shaffer, whose small son received a settlement from Reitman after falling from a window...
The brief email mentions an interesting fact about Keith's behavior during the court proceedings, as follows:
Keith didn't come to the mediation or to court. He appeared superior to all the court things and when we were doing dispositions (sic) he appeared to be arogant. (sic)
In the photo above, we see the slummy little king of everything entering his "ugly ass chocolate brown building" on the 1400 block of West Broadway.
(Sarcasm font)
But I say Keith has a right to be arrogant. He is, after all, the winner winner chicken dinner of Johnny Northside's "what shall my next obsessive blogging project be?" And he holds this proud title until the crappy blue houses on Penn Ave. N. are knocked down and hauled away.
And yet he has the audacity to interfere with the BLO reconstruction, claiming BLO blighted the neighborhood after the tornado. I read another news outlet interview with Reitman saying something to the effect how unfair the redevelopment project on Penn and Broadway was because HE wanted to take advantage of such an opportunity for his "lovely" (yes, I do remember "lovely" as a quote) vacant building near the proposed project area. Thankfully for BLO the project was redesigned to avoid his building but unfortunately for the neighborhood, his empty building will sit there like all his other crappy, vacant properties.
ReplyDeleteIf I had to list local examples of hardcore capitalism failures in this country, this guy's name would be near the top of the list. What other business except "land-lording" allows the entrepreneur to utterly destroy his resource and the surrounding area while making tons of money? You certainly can't run a restaurant with rotten food or stock a clothing boutique with dirty, ripped-up merchandise. He's a one-man neighborhood wrecking machine and yet nothing stops him.
>>What other business except "land-lording" allows the entrepreneur to utterly destroy his resource and the surrounding area while making tons of money?<<
ReplyDeleteStrip mining.
Nice analogy Anon. I suppose Reitman mines the ore out of homes and leaves low-grade taconite and slag behind.
ReplyDeleteSlumlords mine the value and housing resources of neighborhoods, leaving piles of garbage, abandoned cars and wrecked and burned buildings in their wake. Not to mention hordes of hookers and addicts and the bodies that thug life randomly deposits in the neighborhood.
ReplyDeleteSomeone else has to pay to clean up the mess. Slumlords take the money and run, but usually don't even have to run as they don't live where they loot.
I'm ranting in general terms, and it is a random thing that the rant is posted at this post. Reitman might be the next Donald Trump for all I know.