Aview files 2nd bankruptcy to block 2nd auction for Midtown West property valued at $19M

Abraham Leifer, who leads Aview Equities, filed a bankruptcy petition yesterday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Brooklyn, in order to halt an auction scheduled for today in Manhattan, to sell the Midtown West property, 19 West 55th Street, which has been valued at $19 million.

A court-appointed referee scheduled a foreclosure auction for September 17, 2025, to sell the 28-unit apartment building that secures an allegedly defaulted $36.76 million loan Abraham Leifer’s Aview Equities , through the entity 19 W 55 LLC, borrowed on December 30, 2019. The auction date was disclosed in a notice of sale published August 1, 2025, as part of the foreclosure case lender Merchants Bank of Indiana  initiated in March 2023. The owner valued the property at $19 million in a December 2024 bankruptcy filing.

This auction scheduled for today was the second notice of sale for the property. The first, filed December 13, 2024, set a sale date of January 15, 2025. However, on the same day that the notice of sale was published, a bankruptcy specialist on behalf of Abraham Leifer submitted a chapter 11 bankruptcy petition in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn, which blocked the January foreclosure auction. The petition valued the property at $19 million, but stated it has liabilities of more than $69 million, including senior lender Merchants Bank of Indiana seeking $49.5 million, and an unsecured lender seeking $17.75 million, which is at the address of developer Abraham Leser of the Leser Group.

The judge in that bankruptcy case, Nancy Hershey Lord, dismissed the case on April 6, 2025, and it returned to the state court, which subsequently set the auction date.

State Court Case 850114/2023 LINK

First Bankruptcy Case 1-24-45220-nhl LINK

Second Bankruptcy Case 1-25-44436-jmm LINK

Abraham Leifer of 19 West 55 LLC submitted a major alteration application for a renovation of the 40,162 square-foot residential (J-0) building at 19 West 55th Street in Midtown West, Manhattan. The plan was filed with the New York City Department of Buildings on August 6, 2018 under job number 123470662. It calls for a rehab of the nine-story building to convert it from 28 units to 53 units. The project is described in the filing as: filed to renovate and change layouts of all apartment floors cellar 1-9th and penthouse. demo and construct interior partitions ceilings and doors.

The property

The elevator building with 28 residential units in Midtown West has 34,454 square feet of built space and 5,550 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 40,000 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 50 feet and is 100 feet deep with a total lot size of 5,000 square feet. The lot is irregular. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $8.4 million. The most recent loan totaled $36.8 million and was provided by Merchants Bank of Indiana on December 30, 2019.

Prior sales and revenue

This property was sold for $50 million on December 28, 2017.

The 34,454-square-foot property generated revenue of $1.4 million or $42 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

Violations and lawsuits

According to city public data, the property has received three DOB violations, $3,125 in ECB penalties, 15 housing violations, and $14,125 in OATH penalties in the last year.

The property was involved in zero lawsuits and one bankruptcy over the past two years. The bankruptcy was filed on December 13, 2024, by None citing assets of $49.4 million.

The neighborhood

In Midtown West, The majority, or 75 percent of the 75.9 million square feet of commercial built space are office buildings, with hotel buildings next occupying 14 percent of the space. In sales, Midtown West has the 3rd highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $2.2 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Midtown West is the 2nd most active neighborhood among other neighborhoods. It had 37 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 49 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of 23 of the 35 commercial properties representing 1,480,060 square feet of the 1,597,691 square feet. The largest owner is Abraham Heby, followed by Assa Properties and then Aview Equities. There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The owner

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Aview Equities owned at least two commercial properties with 159 residential units in New York City with 34,454 square feet and a city-determined market value of $9.5 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $168.8 million in debt, with top three lenders as Parkview Financial, G4 Capital Partners, and Merchants Bank of Indiana respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 100 percent of the 34,454 square feet of built space are elevator properties, with development properties next occupying 0 percent of the space. They are all located in Manhattan.

The owners according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development includes Abraham Leifer, head officer and Marcos Ortiz, site manager. The business entity is 19 W 55 Llc.

The surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 21 West 55 Street, PincusCo identified 24 commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months. Of those 24 items, 18 were sales above $5 million totaling $1.5 billion. The most recent of the 18 was Mk Holdings (Cayman), Ltd which bought one condo unit in the 6,296-square-foot, 109-unit mixed-use building (RM) on 730 5th Avenue for $55 million from Thriving Real Estate Partners (Slp) Limited on September 5, 2025. Of those 24 items, six were loans above $5 million totaling $631.8 million. The most recent of the six was Emmes Asset Management Company in which borrowed $20 million from Genesis LLC secured by the 45,743-square-foot, two-unit mixed-use building (K2) on 11 West 56th Street and one other property on August 7, 2025.

Direct link to the property’s ACRIS page and link to DOB NOW portal.