New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani released a short documentary about tenants across 93 buildings fighting Pinnacle Group, the owner.
According to NYC.gov, the documentary, titled The Union of Pinnacle Tenants: A Short History of NYC Housing, the documentary features interviews with tenants and City Leaders after “Mayor Mamdani visited a Pinnacle building and directed the New York City Law Department to intervene in the company’s bankruptcy proceedings in support of the Union of Pinnacle Tenants (UPT).”
Through interviews with tenants and City leaders, along with footage from pivotal moments in the campaign, the film tells the story of an organizing effort that secured a commitment from the buildings’ new owners to invest $30 million in repairs and forgive tenants’ rent arrears. It also follows the ongoing fight for fair lease renewals, high-quality repairs and other protections that tenants continue to bargain for together.
As the Mamdani administration continues to support UPT and tenant organizing across the five boroughs, this film highlights what becomes possible when neighbors come together to fight for one another. The Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants (MOPT) will partner with UPT to host screenings for tenants across the city.
Mamdani hailed the union for showing what’s possible when neighbors organize to win “important victories that made real, material impacts in New Yorkers’ lives.”
“I’m proud to stand with them as they continue the fight for affordable, dignified housing across the city,” said Mayor Mamdani. “This film tells the story of that organizing, but I hope it also reminds New York City tenants that the power to change their living conditions begins with one another. The most protected tenant is an organized tenant.”
The documentary features Cea Waver, director of the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants. Weaver made headlines in January after her comments on private property were exposed. “Private property, including any kind of ESPECIALLY homeownership, is a weapon of white supremacy,” Weaver said in 2019.
Weaver called to “Seize private property!” a year earlier.
As note by the New York Post, the documentary also features the narration of The Gilded Age actor Morgan Spector, “who was blasted by one watchdog group as ‘extremist’ over his anti-Israel views.”
The watchdog group Common Sense also objected to taxpayer funds being used to produce the documentary.
“New Yorkers elected a mayor, not a Hollywood producer,” it said. “The administration should, of course, communicate with New Yorkers, and transparency and accessibility are essential. But when an undisclosed sum of public dollars is used to create a video narrated by a well-documented extremist in an effort clearly intended to generate viral attention, priorities have become recklessly misplaced.”