Aubrey and Berneche counter that they simply have not had the cash needed to maintain the building. And besides, it was a little late by the time a receiver was appointed near the end of September; much damage had already been done. In addition, Shawn Cohen had already been in business for almost a month.
When Jonathan Katcher left for France in late August, Cohen was the only person left in the building. No one seemed to be in control of the place, which Cohen viewed as an opportunity. "I saw there was money to be made," he says. He invested $300 in enough second-hand appliances to make two apartments livable, and then put out the for-rent sign. More tenants followed. At one point refrigerators lined the sidewalk as Cohen and his hired crew got them ready for installation. By November, when the receiver finally wrested control, Cohen had managed to rent seventeen apartments at $400 per month. (The tenants were protected from immediate eviction because their rent receipts, though unauthorized, entitled them to certain legal rights.) If utility workers came to shut off the water or electricity because no one was paying the bills, Cohen says he found ways to make them disappear. "They shut off the water one time by taking the meter right out of the ground," Cohen recalls, "so I had to send some boys to liberate a meter from another building."
Initially, Aubrey and Berneche didn't complain about Cohen's rental scam. At least it meant the building wasn't vacant, and that made it more attractive to a potential buyer. "The first month it was peaceful," Cohen shrugs. "All the tenants were friendly drinkers and pot smokers, not the hard-core crackheads who came in the end." But by November the building had become nothing more than a large crash pad, with Cohen and the court-appointed receiver fighting over what rent money they could finagle. Although Ed Aubrey's attorneys said he didn't have the right to step in, he couldn't stand it any longer. "That's when I started to take charge," Aubrey recalls. "There were crack cans all over, and human feces in the corners of the rooms." He did his best to make the building presentable.
The wily Cohen finally lost his battle with the receiver for control of the rental income, but he stayed in the building a while longer, saved from quick eviction by Miami Beach's tenant laws. Three weeks ago he got out, one of the last squatters to vacate. "I made about $4000," Cohen said recently while lounging in the lobby of the Franklin Hotel. "The receivers were after me to give them the money I collected. I told them to fuck off." A mugging he'd suffered a couple of nights earlier at 841 Collins had left him with a swollen lip, a desire to get out of town, and an inclination to muse: "I'm thinking now, 'What have I made out of this thing but a bunch of trouble?'"
Last week Jonathan Katcher did get a chance to speak for himself. He phoned from Fiji after learning that the saga of 841 Collins was going to see print. "This situation has caused me mental pain and problems with my family," he said. "That's why I walked away, to get the pain stopped." Like the two snowbirds from Massachusetts, Katcher was following a dream when he decided to plunge into the project. His father, it turns out, had correctly read that he was trying to prove himself. Some of his wealthy friends had made a big splash on the South Beach scene by turning old buildings into profitable guesthouses. "I was thirsting like crazy to do a deal because I was jealous ofmy friends," Katcher candidly admitted. "They were making a lot of money in a hotel deal. I thought it was going to be easy."
Katcher stressed that he never meant to hurt anyone. "I don't think Aubrey and Berneche should have to pay for my inexperience," he said. "I didn't know what I was doing. The building was serving my ego." But his father still had his eye on the proverbial bottom line. "I knew that I wanted to sell the building," young Katcher says. "I am upset at my dad -- I shouldn't say that -- because he thinks that apparently from a business point of view the lawyers can recoup some of our money." Katcher signed off after declaring he would make things right.
Two hours later he called back. He had spoken with his father. "I think we are going to sell the property without the default interest...," he announced. "We are trying to sell the building and we have changed our position and we wished we maybe had sold it a little sooner." As for his own future, Katcher said it wouldn't include any more Art Deco dreams. "I don't need deals to be productive," he concluded. "I have a Hasselblad and I am in Fiji taking pictures of the indigenous Indians. It's my art, it's what I do.
