He denied it was social engineering or a bid to attract more middle class tenants to the borough which has traditionally been dominated by council tenants.
The Turning Torso's developer, H.S.B., generally builds co-ops aimed at middle-class tenants.
He said it has sought to attract middle-class tenants, like teachers and health care workers.
Instead, Mother Hale's daughter, Lorraine E. Hale, rented all but a dozen to friends, relatives and middle-class tenants.
If rent stabilization creates an inequality, it is so poor and middle-class tenants can afford to live in their apartments.
But the owners defaulted on their $3 billion mortgage in January and have since agreed to turn the properties, long an affordable oasis for working- and middle-class tenants, over to lenders.
The city's agreement to help finance the plan, hammered out among Mr. Donovan, Ms. Speliotis and others, was hailed as a breakthrough for subsidizing a substantial amount of housing for an unusually broad range of middle-class tenants.
They contend that the overhaul of state rent regulations is necessary to curb the loss of housing for working- and middle-class tenants on the Lower East Side and in Harlem, East New York and the South Bronx.
In contrast to these "apartments," which were simply personal suites within great houses, the apartment house as it is known today first appeared in Paris and other large European cities in the 18th century, when tall blocks of flats for middle-class tenants began appearing.
IN those days, the model tenement movement was criticized by some who said that it was actually reaching middle-class tenants, and that perhaps because of the somewhat higher rents, it missed its real targets, the poor who lived in the traditional dank and ill-ventilated tenements.
