Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

He let the Hungerford go to waste. Now landlord admits he has no plan to fix it

A couch on the fourth floor of Hungerford Building has become a living space for the homeless. The artists who still remain in their studios have told the buildings management they don't feel safe in the building.
Max Schulte
/
WXXI News
A couch on the fourth floor of Hungerford Building has become a living space for the homeless. The artists who still remain in their studios have told the buildings management they don't feel safe in the building. 

A cold draft wafts through the ground floor hallway of the Hungerford Building on an early January afternoon — carrying the stale scent of trash.

The odor rises from a small mountain of refuse piled between the loading dock doors and the freight elevator. At the center of that pile sits an open cardboard box. And in it, a pile of human excrement, dried from weeks sitting in the open air.

“If people have to have things brought in, this is what they use, this is an active loading dock,” said Nancy Coons of Muze Gallery, an art studio that’s been in the Hungerford for 18 years. “It’s disgusting.”

The Hungerford Building was once home to over 100 artist studios. Real estate investor Peter Hungerford bought the building in 2022. Less than 15 studios are occupied by artists today, and many of them have plans to move out.
Max Schulte
/
WXXI News
The sun sets behind the brick Hungerford Building complex on East Main Street, silhouetting a smokestack against the a smattering of clouds.

The box is a harbinger of what’s to come in exploring the cavernous facility on East Main Street. Once a haven for the local arts community, with fixture events like the First Friday and Second Saturday open gallery nights, the building has fallen into disrepair in the past two years, and the artist community that called it home for decades has largely diffused throughout the city.

Homeless encampments now dot the hallways, alongside piles of rotting food, toiletries and grime. The bathrooms are in shambles, with doors broken and most toilets filled with stagnant human waste. Wastewater drains openly from leaking pipes into a fetid trench in the basement. And water drips steadily from the ceiling into puddles bowed into the hardwood floor. The stench of mold is everywhere.

“The thing is, I don’t understand how he’s getting away with this,” Coons said of landlord Peter Hungerford. “I have to pay rent, nobody’s coming in here because the place is disgusting, and if I don’t pay rent, I get evicted.”

Death of an artist haven

Hungerford is a Staten Island real estate investor who bought the building for $7.7 million in 2022.

The Hungerford Building was built in 1900 by J. Hungerford Smith, a distant relative.

Originally, this was a soda syrup factory. For the past several decades, the Hungerford Building’s 3.4 acres of interlocking structures has been a thriving artist community. About 170 artist studios, small businesses, and other assorted tenants filled the complex at the time of Hungerford’s purchase.

That purchase sent waves of concern through the artist community in the building and officials at City Hall. Hungerford has a troubled history in city real estate management. In 2018, the city condemned one of his properties on Dewey Avenue and later sued him for two others. That was after tenants at apartment buildings on Chili Avenue and Thurston Road held a rent strike over poor living conditions.

Most of the bathrooms in the Hungerford Building are broken or are in unsanitary condition for use. Tenants say this one on the fourth floor has been turned into a gathering place for homeless people who have taken up residence in the building.
Max Schulte
/
WXXI News
Most of the bathrooms in the Hungerford Building are broken or are in unsanitary condition for use. Tenants say this one on the fourth floor has been turned into a gathering place for homeless people who have taken up residence in the building.

In total, the two buildings had amassed more than 100 code violations in little more than two years under his ownership — for problems ranging from broken windows and roach and mouse infestation to clogged bathroom drain lines and leaking sewage.

Today, the Hungerford is a ghost town.

Jennifer Buckley runs East Main Clay, a pottery studio on the ground level of the Hungerford. She also lives in one of the building’s lofts. She estimates that, at best, 15 tenants remain in the building.

“It’s the community we miss the most,” Buckley said. “The building is a building, and we like our old building, but the community is the issue.”

Nancy Coons picks up a sign that had fallen off the wall at the entrance to the second floor studios of the Hungerford Building. Coon's Muse Gallery shared the floor with over 30 other artist studios listed on the sign. She is one of five tenants remaining on the floor as most have left since Peter Hungerford bought the building in 2022.
Max Schulte
/
WXXI News
Nancy Coons picks up a sign that had fallen off the wall at the entrance to the second floor studios of the Hungerford Building. Coon's Muse Gallery shared the floor with over 30 other artist studios listed on the sign. She is one of five tenants remaining on the floor as most have left since Peter Hungerford bought the building in 2022.

When Hungerford first bought the building, he vowed not to force any artists out. That concern had been paramount among tenants, who later formed a building tenant union.

While some evictions took place, tenants said it was the rapid deterioration of the building and unresponsive management that led to an exodus of the arts community. But in the past week, during the reporting of this story, tenants said management did take action, to try to address break-ins and vagrancy, and to clean up. A city inspector also visited.

Reached by phone, Hungerford blamed the building’s decline on an increase in city property taxes and difficulty in finding tenants willing to pay a premium to rent in the building.

“The building is in a current condition where it only justifies so much in rent, so that encourages us to go in and renovate the building and bring it up to modern-day standards,” Hungerford said. “But if we do so, that requires we charge more in rent, so we’re sort of between a rock and a hard place of what to do, and what to do next, and quite frankly, I don’t have a very straightforward answer.”

The building is up for re-inspection next week, according to the city. But while inspectors could ticket Hungerford for additional code violations, the city said in a statement that its powers are limited due to the building being a commercial facility. The city has more authority when it comes to ensuring code compliance of residential properties.

Officials said the city’s role is largely holding landlords to account on specific properties. Limiting landlords from renting entirely is less feasible. But it’s been done before.

“The city continues to evaluate this property’s condition to guide escalating our enforcement,” the statement read. “We continue to issue appropriate tickets, increase fines, and work toward compliance with the owner. If non-compliance continues, we would take the case to court.”

Rotting in limbo

In the early months of Hungerford's ownership, Buckley and other tenants formed a tenant union to help ensure rent hikes wouldn’t take place, and that the artist community would be protected.

Hungerford was involved in those meetings, and email exchanges obtained by WXXI News show he was actively engaged in conversations about the future of the building.

For example, in June 2023, he instituted monthly operating expense charges — a total of $27,930 monthly split between tenants based on square footage. Hungerford, in a letter to tenants, described the measure as an effort to ensure fairness and protect “legacy tenants.” Hungerford said his original plan was to attract more tenants willing to pay a premium for high-value space, which in turn would allow him to keep rents low for longstanding artist tenants.

But ownership made questionable decisions seemingly from the start.

Leaking pipes have saturated wood floors in the hallways of the Hungerford Building.
Max Schulte
/
WXXI News
Leaking pipes have saturated wood floors in the hallways of the Hungerford Building.

After buying the building for $7.7 million, he secured an $8.25 million mortgage. And while he got quickly to work on renovations, he was flagged for doing so without a permit, leading the city to issue a stop work order. No meaningful renovations have been done on the building since.

A regular security presence and code locks on doors also were removed soon after Hungerford took over, tenants said.

The city raised the assessed value of the complex the year after he bought it, increasing the value from $1.4 million to $6.7 million, which tripled his tax bill to $59,195.

In early 2024, his communications with tenants stopped. Tenants reported Hungerford became increasingly hard to contact, as the problems at the building mounted.

According to city property records, the Hungerford Building currently has 19 open code violations, 11 of which are health- and safety-related. Among them are leaking pipes, broken toilets, a broken fire door, and a leaking roof. He has recently fallen behind on his taxes, and has not paid his water bill, records show.

The north end of the first floor at the Hungerford Building is littered with garbage and food waste from a homeless encampment. The artists who still remain in their studios say they have told the building's management they don't feel safe in the building.
Max Schulte
/
WXXI News
The north end of the first floor at the Hungerford Building is littered with garbage and food waste from a homeless encampment. The artists who still remain in their studios say they have told the building's management they don't feel safe in the building. 

The absence of security measures allowed homeless encampments to pop up throughout the building, tenants said. On an early January visit, at least three locations in the building showed clear signs of people living in the hallway.

Siena Pullinzi, a painter and printmaker, ran her art studio out of the fourth floor of the Hungerford Building until November, when she moved her studio to her and her partner’s apartment. She said for the last year she paid for the studio space, she rarely visited, partly because of concerns with safety in the stairwells and corridors leading to her studio.

“I was always kind of scared to even go down there,” Pullinzi said. “Who’s going to be down here? Who’s going to be in the stairwell? So, I just kind of avoided it until I was like, it’s pointless to keep paying for this if I’m not using it. But it was just so heartbreaking and upsetting to let go.”

Water leaks from pipes as seen from the door into one of the larger empty studios on the first floor of the Hungerford Building.
Max Schulte
/
WXXI News
Water leaks from pipes as seen from the door into one of the larger empty studios on the first floor of the Hungerford Building.

Hungerford said his initial plans for the building are now largely dead. The deterioration of the building, the millions of dollars likely needed to rehabilitate it, and the higher property tax bill has left the building with few paths forward, he said — and he is open to selling.

Pullinzi, after leaving the building, mourns the loss of the Hungerford as an artist community, something she dreamed of being a part of.

“From when I was in college, I would go to First Fridays, and it was like a goal to be in the Hungerford and have an art studio in the Hungerford, because it was just so pivotal to be in that place,” Pullinzi said. “I was awestruck.”

She continued: “I just viewed it as this central community for what Rochester stands for as an art community. I don’t know if it is that anymore.”

Buckley, of Main Street Clay, said that First Friday alone typically was enough to net the studio enough sales to pay rent.

On First Friday in January, the studio did not make a single sale.

Toilet paper and rags with what appears to be human excrement litter the entryway to the former studio of EvenOdd Creative, a design and fashion studio that makes hand made leather goods. The business moved out of the Hungerford is September 2024.
Max Schulte
/
WXXI News
Toilet paper and rags with what appears to be human excrement litter the entryway to the former studio of EvenOdd Creative, a design and fashion studio that makes hand made leather goods. The business moved out of the Hungerford is September 2024.

Coming up in the February issue of CITY: Hear more from the artists — those who stayed at the Hungerford, but also those who left, where they went and how all have been affected by the loss of community.

Gino Fanelli is an investigative reporter who also covers City Hall. He joined the staff in 2019 by way of the Rochester Business Journal, and formerly served as a watchdog reporter for Gannett in Maryland and a stringer for the Associated Press.