BY LEVAR ALONZO | Banned from running a free podcast out of his former apartment, an East Village man has returned to the airwaves, once again inviting total strangers into his home just to talk.
Uluç Ülgen moved out of his previous apartment, on E. Fifth St., after his landlord gave him an ultimatum to cease all recording or face eviction. He has since found a new home and is back to recording his podcast, mürmur.
For now, at least, he is requesting that his new address not be published in the newspaper.
He said that he had his first taping at the new location on Oct. 8 and it felt great.
“It’s unexplainable how I feel to be back doing what I love,” he said. “I feel like my air of magic has come back.”
Ülgen said he hasn’t told his new landlords about the podcast, but that if he is told again to get out, he will definitely fight for his rights this time around.
“The place is bigger and cheaper,” he said. “If I’m given another ultimatum to move, then this time I will put my foot down ’cause I have a right to do this.”
The once-shy 28-year-old was born in Turkey but raised in Minnesota. He said since moving to this country he has had to deal with trying to fit in.
Since launching his podcast, he went from being the foreign kid to a more outspoken and trusting person.
For the past three years, Ülgen has invited one to two people per week, often total strangers to him, into his apartment to be guests on his podcast.
Although he viewed his podcast as a sociable service to the community, his former landlord, Robert Perl, said Ülgen having strangers in and out of the building posed safety concerns for the other tenants.
Perl said that if he had not been getting complaints from other tenants, then he would have reconsidered his decision.
“There are other units that are, at times, being used for Airbnb and that exacerbates the problem,” Perl said, in an e-mail last month. “We have to deal with this regularly these days.”
Lured by fliers posted around the East Village, more than 250 guests have shown up on Ülgen’s doorstep just to talk on mürmur. Guests have ranged from homeless persons and rock stars to politicos, like Carlina Rivera, the Democratic nominee for City Council District 2.
Ülgen views his space as a free platform for people who just want to have a conversation and get whatever is on their mind off of it. It is free of charge to be a guest on mürmur.
Ülgen noted that Rivera — after reading the Sept 21. article in The Villager “Mürmur podcast goes silent, for now” — reached out to him to offer her support.
“I have gotten so much support from those in the community that want to see mürmur back on,” he said. “It got me choked up.”
Keeping on with his labor of love, Ülgen has another guest scheduled for this Sat., Oct. 14.
