A Bakery, a Landlord and a Heated Fight About Back Rent

Good morning. It’s Wednesday. Today we’ll look at a landlord’s lawsuit against a beloved bakery on the Upper West Side. We’ll also get details on the “affordability agenda” that Gov. Kathy Hochul outlined in her State of the State address.

The last time Pamela Cruz went apartment hunting, she and her partner talked location. Her partner, Peter Woit, told her — jokingly, they insist — that he did not want to be much farther from Silver Moon Bakery than they already were.

“So we went from one place on 103rd Street to another place on 103rd Street,” Cruz said. Silver Moon Bakery was, and is, two blocks away, on Broadway at West 105th Street.

There is warmth at Silver Moon, and not just from the bread that comes out of the oven. The place is loved in the neighborhood. Cruz knows the names of the employees behind the counter. They know when regulars like Cruz have been away for a while. “We are a neighborhood staple,” said Judith Norell, who opened Silver Moon in 2000.

But behind the baguettes — and the cakes, croissants and muffins — there is also acrimony: Silver Moon’s landlord has filed a lawsuit accusing the bakery of failing to leave when its lease ran out last year and of failing to pay more than $100,000 in rent and fees. The landlord, Broadside Realty, has moved to evict Silver Moon.

“Losing it is not something I want to think about,” said Woit, a senior lecturer in mathematics at Columbia University.

The lawsuit, filed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, said that the Silver Moon was $6,084 in arrears when the lease expired last May and that Broadside had not extended or renewed it. According to the lawsuit, Broadside sent Silver Moon a notice, saying that the bakery should vacate the storefront by July 31. Silver Moon stayed put and, in August, Broadside began an eviction proceeding that is separate from the lawsuit. The lawsuit says the eviction case is pending.

The lawsuit said that Silver Moon had been paying $13,261 a month in rent since June 2023, not including water charges and a portion of the building’s real estate taxes that Silver Moon was responsible for. The suit said that the rent jumped to $33,153 a month under a provision that applied when Silver Moon stayed on as it did. The lawsuit claimed that Silver Moon owed $194,692 in rent through the end of last year and had paid only $37,378 since the lease expired.

Norell disputed the figures but declined to discuss the case or the eviction proceeding beyond saying, “I want to continue to work in the same spot.”

She opened Silver Moon as a second career. Her first was as a harpsichordist. She had studied with an influential exponent of that instrument, Albert Fuller. Reviewing her Carnegie Hall debut in 1971, Allen Hughes, a New York Times music critic, noted that given her “considerable professional experience, it was not surprising that her playing showed commendable strength and musical authority.” Later she also worked as a conductor.

But she had long enjoyed baking and, in the late 1990s, she gave up her music career to apprentice at Amy’s Bread, a bakery in Manhattan. She also studied pastry making with the master baker Gérard Mulot in Paris. Back in New York, she worked at several bakeries before opening Silver Moon.

She told The Times in 2015 that she had noticed a “for rent” sign in the window on Broadway and had called the landlord, Georgia Stamoulis, who offered to rent the space if Norell would let her be a partner in the bakery. Court documents from an unrelated 2008 case indicate that Broadside — the plaintiff in the case against Silver Moon — is controlled by Stamoulis, her two half siblings and another relative. Andrew Sinzheimer, the lawyer who filed the suit, did not immediately respond to an email seeking clarification.

Weather

Expect windy conditions and sunshine with temperatures in the low 30s. For tonight, clear skies with temperatures in the low 20s.

ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING

In effect until Monday (Martin Luther King’s Birthday).

The latest Metro news

State of the State day in Albany is usually a day for agendas and promises, and Tuesday was no exception. Gov. Kathy Hochul used her speech to outline an agenda with a populist flavor. She focused on affordability, an approach calculated to appeal to struggling New Yorkers who showed their frustration in November and weakened Democrats’ hold on the state.

As she did last year, she also made crime a central point of her speech, promising to place a police officer on every overnight subway train.

She proposed a tax cut for 77 percent of New Yorkers — those earning as much as $323,000 a year if they file jointly. The move would “deliver over $1 billion in tax relief to more than 8.3 million taxpayers,” according to a briefing book released in conjunction with her speech.

She did not mention President-elect Donald Trump in her speech, but she highlighted several proposals that could put her at odds with his new administration. She called for measures to protect identities of doctors who prescribe drugs used in medication abortions and to add more state troopers to patrol the northern border.

My colleague Benjamin Oreskes writes that she seemed to shy away from the kind of “resistance” fervor that characterized responses to Trump’s first ascent to power in 2017. Her popularity has plummeted since she took office in 2021 and, as she looks to her re-election campaign next year, rivals from both parties appear to be readying themselves to challenge her.

Beyond Albany, Hochul has been trying to sell suburban commuters on congestion pricing. Suburbanites are an influential voting bloc that could play a major role in deciding her future, and many commuters in suburban areas are frustrated about rising costs. Under congestion pricing, most drivers pay $9 to enter Manhattan south of 60th Street.

Congestion pricing is unpopular: More than half of New York State voters who responded to a Siena College survey in December opposed it, including 60 percent of downstate suburbanites.

“The real heat on this issue is in the Lower Hudson Valley and then on Long Island,” State Senator Robert Ortt, the minority leader in the State Senate, said. “That seems to be where most of the opposition is, and I think for the governor, if you do not do well in those areas, things get a lot more difficult when you are talking about re-election.”

Dear Diary:

What do I know about France?
What do I know about French bookstores in New York City?
Not much is the answer to both questions.
But I do know about sisters.
And I saw two sisters in the French bookstore.
It’s not as if I asked them: “Are you sisters?”
I didn’t need to. I could tell by watching them amid a dispute.
When sisters have conflict, their reactions are unique.
Sister No. 1 said something I couldn’t hear.
Sister No. 2 replied: “In Malaysia, people don’t mention the tiger for fear it will draw him out.” I’m not sure if this was an allegory, but for a moment, the moment became sharp. Coincidentally, in a moment, after that moment, the sisters hugged each other with their eyes, while allowing each other red carpets of retreat.
I didn’t end up buying a French book.
Instead I considered sisters.
Before leaving in pursuit of ice cream.

— Danny Klecko

Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.

Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B.

P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.

Francis Mateo and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com.

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