Chapter 15 - Ten Business Days
On the lender's deadline, the company presented three possible futures for the block: an extended demolition hold while housing claims were resolved; a costly repair plan; or a sale to a buyer willing to take the building and its obligations together. None was comfortable. That was why they were real choices.
The bank agreed to a short forbearance while the outside monitor reviewed a revised budget. It imposed reporting requirements and refused to release new construction funds without independent engineering and relocation arrangements. Philip left the meeting looking as though someone had removed every easy word from his vocabulary.
Meanwhile Russell's lawyer disputed the cash ledger and argued that his company had merely collected temporary caretaker fees. The residents' legal advisers began assembling bank withdrawals, texts, old utility notices and witness accounts. The evidence would be tested through ordinary legal channels, not settled by a dramatic accusation in a hallway.
I met Evan at a diner to understand another set of costs. His crews had been told the block was empty. They had lost shifts after the work stopped, and two apprentices worried they would be laid off. He didn't ask me to reopen the site. He asked me to stop treating the workers as an afterthought.
“We followed the paperwork,” he said. “Now everyone thinks we're the men who threw the families out.”
“I'll testify about who issued the orders.”
“You can do more than testify. Put us in the room when the next plan is written.”
I brought the request to Philip. He resisted, then allowed a worker safety representative to attend the revised planning sessions. That small concession did more good than any press release I'd written in my career.
That evening Marisol called me herself for the first time since the hotel move.
“Lucy's audition result came,” she said. “She made the alternate list.”
“Is she disappointed?”
“A little. Also proud. She practiced the piece again anyway.”
I smiled, then heard the reason for the call in her pause.
“She asked whether we're ever going home,” Marisol said. “I told her I don't know. I couldn't promise more.”
“Neither can I.”
May you like
“Then make sure the people writing the plan know we're not just a line called relocation costs.”
When she hung up, I opened the revised site proposal. There were maps of the block and estimates for masonry, roofing and utility separation. There was no place for a resident's name, or even a number beside the apartments to show how many families had lived there. I wrote to Philip asking for another meeting before the proposal became official.
