He might look like a clown, but he’s no laughing matter to the beleaguered tenants of a NYCHA building in Chelsea.
A vagabond decked out in a kaleidoscopic wardrobe and head scarves has set up camp in a city apartment building where the unhinged squatter and his band of homeless friends have terrorized tenants for more than two years.
Despite daily complaints about the dangerous situation, tenants said the city seems powerless to remove the man who has laid claim to an apartment to which he has no legal right.
The squatter, named in court documents as Stuart Newman and described as an aggressive man in his 40s, moved in when the former occupant, 77-year-old Harvey Wasserman, died in June 2024, according to a lawsuit filed by the New York City Housing Authority that November.
Since then, he’s refused to leave the Robert Fulton Houses, despite being taken to court and repeated visits from the NYPD.
He was photographed by tenants, emerging from the top of the staircase looking like a deranged parrot, wearing a pastel-colored tropical bird shirt and a makeshift towel turban with dangling multicolored strips of fabric.
Tenants say he brings in a group of vagrants every night, who regularly attack each other and the residents, shoot drugs, strut around naked and set up furniture in the staircases, hallways and balconies.
“The police have dragged them out of there, they come right back. It’s beyond crazy,” the head of the tenant association Miguel Acevedo told The Post. “I think it’s easier to evict a tenant who owes back rent than this squatter.”
Tenants say the squatter’s homeless pals have tried to take over the top five floors of the 25-floor building, run by the New York City Housing Authority on West 17th Street.
“They piss on my floor, they s–t on my floor,” said Gladys Gonzalez, who lives on the 21st floor, one floor above the squat.
“I get that they’re homeless, but it’s not just the squatting, it’s the drugs, it’s the pissing, it the s–t,” she added. “I come out of my apartment with a hammer — it’s me or them.”
“There’s one that’s transgender, she used to sleep on my floor with her boyfriend. The last time I called the cops, her boyfriend was completely naked, only had a shirt on, no shoes, no underwear, and he was literally rubbing his penis and laughing at me.”
Police have made five arrests related to the squatter’s unit since 2025, including charges for menacing a 58-year-old tenant with a frying pan, striking a 56-year-old with a vase in the head, and harassment, an NYPD spokesperson told The Post.
Just this past Thursday, a 42-year-old was hit with a metal pipe, slashing his head, arm and leg. The investigation into that incident is still ongoing.
When The Post visited the building this week, remnants of the chaos from the night before were spotted in an interior staircase, including clothes, syringes and urine. The squatter’s door was marked with a big “A” on it, as well as multiple marks and dents.
“The door looks like that because the homeless they were throwing bricks at it one day because he wouldn’t let them in to get high,” said Gonzalez.
“They clean it up every day — housing comes every day and brings down stuff from the 25th floor.”
At the monthly tenant meeting last week, representatives from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office said they were working to identify the squatters, whose names are not all known, tenants said.
“All of a sudden they have squatter rights. They got a lawyer, so they can’t be evicted,” slammed Amelia Martinez, another tenant of 10 years. “You have to go through the court system. That’s crazy. If I did that, they’d arrest me, walker and all . . . it’s disgusting.”
“Nothing ever happens,” lambasted Gonzalez. “And what do they say? Oh, it’s public housing — we just gotta deal with it. Nobody should be subject to this.”
“It’s a constant battle with NYCHA, with the police, with the borough.”
One tenant, who didn’t want to be identified because she feared for her safety, said she was scared to leave her apartment.
“One day the squatter was dressed in black, he had a black hat and all of a sudden, he gets right there and he pulls out a knife, and he’s just sizing it up and going, ‘You’re not going to kill me,'” she said.
“I don’t think it’s fair for me to face them as a single female. I pay $1,000 a month and they’re living here free and scaring the s–t out of me.”
In March, a NYC Department of Investigation report found that squatters took over at least 548 vacant NYCHA units between 2022 and 2025.
Since then, NYCHA told The Post it’s found some 40 more, as it’s launched a monthly inspection program into vacant units.
“NYCHA staff routinely work with the NYPD to address issues concerning unauthorized occupants and loitering on NYCHA property,” Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Sklar told The Post.
But this squatter has been refusing entry to NYCHA officials, Acevedo told The Post.
And with authorities seemingly unable to remove him, residents are losing hope.
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