Police vehicles swarmed the area surrounding 197 Madison this morning after an emotionally disturbed tenant held his landlord at knifepoint in a second-floor apartment. The landlord broke a window and dropped fifteen feet to the street to escape around 10 this morning, the Post reported. He was taken to Bellevue hospital for resulting back pain and cuts to his arms and head, but when police arrived at the scene, the tenant barricaded himself in his apartment for hours, allegedly armed with two knives. According to The Post, he left the building in police custody shortly after noon and is also being treated at Bellevue.
The incident summoned a massive police presence, and officers roped off Madison between Rutgers and Pike Streets, blocking all pedestrian and vehicle traffic. At about 12:30, police from the Technical Assistance Response Unit appeared to lower a camera through the broken window from the third floor, perhaps to search the contents of the apartment at a safe distance. By 1 p.m. most of the police vehicles had left the scene, and the block opened for foot traffic shortly after. The sidewalk in the immediate vicinity of the building remains a closed crime scene.
No word yet on the cause of the argument, but relations between residents and the owner of 197 Madison have long been strained. K L Father & Son, Inc., the company that owns the building, was cited as one of the city’s worst landlords by the Public Advocate in 2010 and 2012. More photos from the scene below…
Perhaps the last building in the city with no less than four payphones outside its door.