By Lincoln Anderson
George Boyd, a longtime tenant at 47 E. Third St. — an East Village tenement where tenants unsuccessfully tried to stave off a mass eviction effort — died June 19 at Beth Israel Hospice. He was at the hospice 15 hours before he expired.
He was 71, and had suffered from heart problems. But friends and family members said his having to leave the E. Third St. building exacerbated his deteriorating health.
“I think that put some undue stress on him,” said his son, Ernest Boyd. “He had had a bad heart for some time. But I think the psychological toll of moving, after living somewhere for 30 years — especially, he was single. He had his own life, did his own thing, a typical Lower East Side eccentric.”
And yet, the tenants’ fight to keep their apartments also gave his father a new focus, Ernest said.
“I think the struggle for that building, 47 E. Third St., gave him a purpose in life,” his son said.
Ernest, 36, a film editor who lives in Hoboken, was George’s only child.
Five years ago, the landlords of 47 E. Third St., Alistair and Catherine Economakis, moved to clear the five-story, 15-unit building of all its rent-regulated tenants, saying they wanted to gut-rehab it for their own, single-family residence. Boyd and the other holdouts filed a lawsuit to fight their eviction under the owner-occupancy law, but lost in court. Seeing no recourse, they ultimately took buyouts and vacated the building last summer. Through the Cooper Square Mutual Housing Association, Boyd found an apartment at 23 E. Third St.
Because he was a senior citizen, Boyd had special protections. For example, if they evicted him, the Economakises had to provide him with an apartment at least equivalent to the one he had. In an interview with The Villager last year, Alistair Economakis said he had shown Boyd a nearby apartment with new fixtures, but Boyd turned it down. Ernest said Boyd treasured his south-facing windows, which let the sun stream in, and that the apartment he was shown didn’t have that kind of exposure.
“He would not take an apartment with no sun,” Ernest stated. “Who wants to live in a hole, with no sun?
“I think they thought he was some sweet old black man — they were wrong. I think they thought he was going to be easy to get rid of. He really was determined to stay at 47 E. Third St.”
In fact, George Boyd was “extremely generous, extremely politically minded and cantankerous at the same time,” his son said. “He was a voracious reader. The man read everything — the Times, journals. That’s really all he did: read, go to jazz shows, Mets — and debating who was better, Willie Mays or Babe Ruth. If you said Willie Mays, he’d say Babe Ruth. If you said Babe Ruth, he’d say Willie Mays.”
During his working days, Boyd was a Verizon telephone repairman, first in the West Village, then Chelsea.
Four years ago, to avoid a lengthy court battle, Alistair Economakis hatched a Plan B — to take only the building’s front part for his family’s use, while leaving the six rear apartments for the tenants. He just needed Boyd’s unit, in the building’s front, to connect his space — but Boyd refused, keeping solidarity with the other holdouts.
Ursula Kinzel, one of the leaders of the tenants’ fight at 47 E. Third St., was planning to go with activist Susan Howard to visit Boyd at the hospice the day he died.
“He could have just walked out on us, but he didn’t,” Kinzel said, recalling the tenants’ struggle. “He just wanted to stick with us. He was just one of the nicest, kindest persons I know. … What really did him in was losing his apartment. He just loved the light — it was more important than having a granite sink or whatever. You can’t blame anyone for someone else’s death, but I’m sure losing his beloved home didn’t help at all.”
George Boyd is survived by Ernest’s mother, Linda, as well as a brother and three sisters, all in New York City, and nieces and nephews. His remains were cremated. A memorial is planned for sometime after Labor Day.
