She\u2019s unplugged from reality.<\/p>\n
A rent-striking, rising-star radical orchestrating the Mamdani administration\u2019s socialist\u00a0housing agenda<\/a> is the daughter of a famed music studio owner who recorded rock legends like David Bowie, the Ramones, Blondie, Lou Reed, Sonic Youth, the Foo Fighters and Coldplay, The Post has learned.<\/p>\n While framing herself as a champion of the proletariat, Tracy Rosenthal grew up in a trendy $1.7 million NoMad pad with elite access to the music industry \u2014 attending the Grammys at least twice with her dad, four-time winner Steven Rosenthal.<\/p>\n Rosenthal appears in the \u201cA Short History of NYC Housing\u201d mini doc released by the Mayor\u2019s office on Aug. 4. NYC Mayor’s office\/YouTube<\/p>\n Her father recorded hit albums by some of the world\u2019s biggest artists at the Magic Shop, the SoHo studio he founded in 1988, including Coldplay\u2019s 2008 \u201cViva la Vida,\u201d which sold more than 10 million copies worldwide; the Foo Fighters\u2019 2014 \u201cSonic Highways,\u201d for which he was interviewed in the band\u2019s HBO docuseries; and Bowie\u2019s final album, 2016\u2019s \u201cBlackstar.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet despite her first-class upbringing, she\u2019s been on a four-year \u201crent strike\u201d since moving back to New York City after a stint in Los Angeles \u2014 because the Bolshevik bugged out after spotting a cockroach in her hip $2,300 a month Bed-Stuy apartment.<\/p>\n At a North Carolina Democratic Socialists of America meeting where she spoke last August, Rosenthal, 39 \u2014 who pridefully posed for a snap on Karl Marx\u2019s grave during a trip to London \u2014 sang the blues about what she claimed were horrendous conditions she had to endure in 2021.<\/p>\n \u201cAs soon as I moved in, I realized that we had roaches . . . and I lost my mind,\u201d she said of the two-bedroom pad that occupies the top floor of a brownstone. \u201cI was very angry. . . . it\u2019s really gross.\u201d<\/p>\n She said the landlord refused to hire an exterminator, and after finding out the building had more rental units than were legally approved and was facing foreclosure, she organized with the other tenants to eventually stop paying rent, stiffing the owner of at least $108,000 on her unit alone. <\/p>\n Rosenthal at the Grammy\u2019s in 2011 with her dad and stepmom. WireImage<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been on rent strike ever since,\u201d she said proudly.<\/p>\n Her Bed-Stuy landlord, Adetunji Akinboboye, eventually lost the building to foreclosure in 2023.<\/p>\n US Bank, the new owner, is now suing Rosenthal, along with four other tenants, for eviction, saying they have \u201csquatted upon the premises,\u201d according to records filed in housing court in November. The cases are still before the courts.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, the building on quiet tree-lined Hancock Street was placed under the Housing Preservation Department\u2019s Alternative Enforcement Program \u2014 meaning the landlord had a few months to address tenants\u2019 complaints. It was removed from the program on July 14 after resolving the issues, according to a city notice taped to the front door this week.<\/p>\n Rosenthal posed next to Mamdani at a \u201chold bad landlords accountable\u201d photo op at City Hall in May.<\/p>\n This is the same program the Mamdani administration wants to use to \u201cseize housing,\u201d a previous Post analysis found<\/a> \u2014 and which received a $2 billion budget boost<\/a>. It can lead to the city dragging the landlord to court if it doesn\u2019t do the repairs, and a housing court judge appointing a non-profit to take over the management of the building.<\/p>\n \u201cThey feel entitled to these properties,\u201d said Stu Smith, investigative analyst at the Manhattan Institute, who has been studying Rosenthal and the \u201crent abolitionist\u201d movement.<\/p>\n \u201cI consider her to be a saboteur, I consider her to be a gaslighter. And the fact that the Mamdani administration wants to highlight her as a hero speaks to the ethics and morality of the mayor\u2019s office.\u201d<\/p>\n Rosenthal also attended the Grammy\u2019s in 2023 with her father.<\/p>\n Rosenthal\u2019s 2024 book \u201cAbolish Rent\u201d lays out the playbook of escalating tactics she used herself \u2014 starting with talking to neighbors to identify shared grievances and making collective demands all the way to rent strikes \u2014 with the broader goal of shifting control of housing away from landlords.<\/p>\n It\u2019s helped popularize a confrontational model of tenant activism and become a foundational tome for the DSA, which had her to speak to chapters across the nation for the past two years.<\/p>\n \u201cWe pay rent at the peril of our need and at the barrel of a gun,\u201d she said at a meeting in 2024 in Midtown.<\/p>\n Rosenthal has been a leading tenant activist in both NYC and LA. Tracy Jeanne Rosenthal\/Facebook<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a ransom,\u201d she raged. \u201cWe know that if we don\u2019t make this payment, our landlords can call on agents of state violence who can use physical force to throw us outdoors.\u201d<\/p>\n