'We're Like Guinea Pigs': How An Affordable Lower East Side Complex Got Facial Recognition

Over the course of its 86-year history, Knickerbocker Village, a Depression era affordable housing complex on a hilly section of the Lower East Side between the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges, has been a trailblazer. Built to house the emerging middle class, the nearly 1,600-unit project was one of the country’s first federally funded urban redevelopment projects. The early residents became among the city's fiercest housing organizers, forming the Knickerbocker Village Tenants Association and ultimately paving the way for some of New York’s first landlord-tenant laws.

More recently, in a much less mentioned footnote, Knickerbocker is also believed to be one of the few affordable housing complexes in New York City to have facial recognition as the main means of access. In 2013, shortly after Superstorm Sandy incurred serious damage on the buildings, the complex began rolling out an Israeli biometric system that requires tenants to submit to a facial scan.

Now roughly six years after the technology was introduced at Knickerbocker, lawmakers are proposing state and federal legislation to curb and, in some cases, ban facial recognition outright in residential spaces. In recent years, people have been raising alarms about intrusive nature of facial recognition and how the data is being used (and possibly abused) by agencies like the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Federal Bureau of Investigations and the NYPD. Studies about the lightly regulated technology have also shown that it has trouble categorizing darker-skinned faces, raising questions about fairness.

But amid all of these new concerns, life under the surveillance system has continued unabated for thousands of Knickerbocker residents, even as there are unanswered questions about the way the technology was installed, its reliability and whether residents should be forced to submit to it.

"The tenants have always said it doesn’t work," said Shi Xing Yang, one of the tenant leaders who grew up at Knickerbocker and now lives there with his own family. "'Why can’t we go back to old system?' They don't give us an answer."

He added, "We’re like guinea pigs."

According to several people, the technology was introduced at Knickerbocker with little to no controversy. In part, it was because at the time, the world of biometric technology seemed more futuristic than dangerous, like something ripped from the movie Minority Report. Some say the tenants' seeming acquiescence had to do with their demographic makeup. Once dominated by Italians, the development has over the decades shifted into a predominantly Chinese community, whose members can be heard speaking at least three dialects. Meetings often require the presence of a translator. The complex is also aging—according to the state, Knickerbocker Village is a "Naturally Occurring Retirement Community."

By law, landlords of rent-regulated apartments must seek permission from the Division of Housing and Community Renewal, the enforcement agency for regulated and affordable housing, for any significant “modification in service.” But Cherry Green Property Corp., the owner of Knickerbocker, never applied for approval to install facial recognition. According to the HCR, the first application the agency received involving facial recognition technology came in July 2018, when a Brooklyn landlord submitted an application for a roughly 700-unit rent-stabilized complex. The issue sparked an uproar from tenants and led to a still pending objection filed by Brooklyn Legal Services. In July, U.S. Representative Yvette Clark, who represents parts of Brooklyn, proposed a bill in Congress that specifically seeks to prohibit the use of the technology in public housing.

According to a source familiar with the HCR, a general manager, who is no longer with Cherry Green Property, failed to submit the contract for facial recognition to HCR for review. The lapse, the source said, occurred in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy's devastation, when millions of dollars in contracts were approved to expedite renovations and repairs at Knickerbocker Village. Following the flooding, tenants went weeks without running water and electricity. Both HCR, and the city's Housing Preservation and Development agency worked closely with the landlord to address the damages at the time.

An HCR spokesperson declined to comment on this story, and did not make anyone at the department available for an interview.

One lingering question is whether the landlord was in fact required to get approval from HCR when they installed a facial recognition technology because Knickerbocker is not a traditional rent-regulated complex. Instead, it falls under a now little-used state affordability program known as Title IV, which dates back to 1934, and was succeeded by the Mitchell-Lama Housing Program. Both were created to encourage the development of middle-income housing, and both fall under the supervision of the state amid a web of complex rules.

While Knickerbocker may not be a traditional rent-stabilized complex, the rent-setting and tenant selection process is subject to more restrictions and vetting. Monthly rents start at $810 for a one-bedroom unit, and $1,250 for a three-bedroom. The apartments are income tested: annual income for new tenants many not exceed seven times the annual rent. Existing tenants whose income has risen above that limit must pay a rent surcharge.

More significantly, all rent hikes must be approved by HCR, through a contentious public hearing process that often draws in city, state and federal elected officials. To justify the rent increases, the landlord must essentially open up their books, allowing an accountant hired by the tenants association to look for signs of mismanagement.

The result of this arrangement has been an unrelenting landlord-tenant battle that has grown more pitched as real estate values in the Two Bridges neighborhood have skyrocketed. Last year, One Manhattan Square, a luxury condo development where prices start at $1.2 million, opened near the Manhattan Bridge, blocking views of some tenants and replacing a former Pathmark, the main supermarket. And while the fate of the Two Bridges project, a mega development, appears to be up in the air, most feel it is only a matter of time before more developers are allowed to build on the waterfront neighborhood.

Not surprisingly, Cherry Green Property has for years fought to have Knickerbocker leave the Article IV program, which would effectively privatize the complex, which is spread across two city blocks and has considerable unused open space. In 2006, HCR actually approved the request, on the condition that existing tenants would have their units rent stabilized and that the ownership be transferred to a company that would run the complex outside the Article IV program. But the tenant association took the issue to court, where a state Supreme Court judge overturned the decision.

In the years prior to the installation of facial recognition, there was talk about crime and illegal subletting at Knickerbocker, according to Yang. The tenants in the 12-building development were subsequently moved to a key fob system, which involved using a chip-based card that had a photo of the tenant on it.

According to Yang, the key fobs seemed to put all of the concerns to rest. But to the residents' surprise, the landlord later announced that the fortress-like complex, which has four courtyard entrances—two on Monroe Street and two on Cherry Street, would move to using facial recognition. Following a pilot program in 2013 on one building, the system was expanded. Only the two courtyard entrances on Monroe Street still use the fob system. Once inside the courtyard, all 12 buildings use facial recognition.

For the most part, when it comes to facial recognition, Knickerbocker tenants have not been overly concerned about privacy or whether there is adequate oversight of their personal data.

"My experience has been pretty good for the most part," said one tenant leader who asked that his name not be used. "When it works, it works well. It's fairly convenient to have."

He added: "Unfortunately, it's not a perfect system."

According to several tenants, the scanning system has trouble reading faces on sunny or rainy days, which adds up to a lot of days when it doesn't work. The complex has security guards, who proceed to buzz tenants in if the scan doesn't work. But Yang said the guards sometimes take breaks, especially late at night, leaving tenants potentially waiting for long periods of time to get inside the courtyard. The scanners inside the building entrances tend to work better, he said, but even then, they are not always foolproof.

In the end, the sheer size of Knickerbocker, which has been estimated as having between 4,000 to 5,000 tenants, is what effectively becomes the ad hoc remedy for stranded tenants. Eventually, they will be aided by a neighbor passing through.

But, if that's the case, Yang argued, doesn't that defeat the purpose of having a high-tech security system?

"You installed the system to make us safer," he said.

In response to questions about facial recognition at Knickerbocker, a spokesperson for Cherry Green issued the following statement to Gothamist:

Despite its legal defeat in 2006, Cherry Green has never given up its efforts leave the Article IV program. Last year, the company was found holding meetings with tenants involving a possible co-op or condo conversion. It was then ordered by HCR to "cease and desist" those discussions.

Rush Perez, a spokesman for Council member Margaret Chin, who represents the neighborhood, said her office was "hopeful that management explored all the options and residents were part of that process."

He added that going forward, the Council member has been focused on helping Knickerbocker find "a balance between keeping those units affordable and the addressing the buildings’ capital needs."

In anticipation of future rent increases, Yang said it is fair to ask whether facial recognition was a necessary investment at Knickerbocker, given its uneven performance. The cost of the system is not known by the tenants. According to the Michael Grinthal, an attorney at TakeRoot Justice who represents the tenant association, he has not come across any cost estimates during negotiations with the landlord over a proposed rent increase of 13 percent over two years that it submitted to HCR last year.

A spokesperson for the landlord did not immediately respond to a question about the total cost of facial recognition technology.

Yang is among those who are also increasingly worried about the implications of biometric data. The children at the complex, including Yang's three sons, have had their faces scanned as early as age 8. Because their faces are still changing, they must submit to several scans as they grow older.

On a recent hazy summer afternoon, there was a steady trickle of tenants coming into the courtyard. In a few cases, the scan worked and the gate buzzed open. But in many others, it didn't.

Many were older Chinese men and women. As they ambled past Yang, who speaks three Chinese dialects, waved. Having lived in the complex for almost his entire life, he knew all of the old-timers, many of which still casually refer to Knickerbocker in Chinese as "Italian building" after its previous residents.

Back when facial recognition was introduced, he recalled, the Chinese seniors at Knickerbocker didn't raise much of a fuss.

But then again, he added, "They don't understand how the technology works."

UPDATE: Following the publication of this story, Michael Grinthal, an attorney who represents the Knickerbocker tenant association, said he mistakenly described the timing of the facial recognition installation and the most recent rent increase proposal. The facial recognition system was installed before the latest rent hike application, which was submitted last year.