The National Trust began an oral history project earlier this year when the charity took back full ownership of the Birling Gap Hotel after the previous tenant retired.
Bennett Baumer, a tenant organizer with Housing Conservation Coordinators, a nonprofit group that provides legal and other aid for the tenants, describes the holdout tenants as retired and unemployed.
Residents found out about Independence Plaza North's J-51 status in March 2005, after a longtime tenant and retired lawyer, Ed Rosner, started digging into the matter.
There it sat, amid the still-pristine detritus of a psychiatrist's office, whose tenant had recently retired.
The dispute pits people like Sam Walton, a major landlord spearheading the challenge, against tenants like Gloria and Irving Diller, a retired couple living in Executive Towers, Mr. Walton's 276-unit building on the boardwalk.
He retired as a lobbyist in Albany for Mitchell-Lama housing, tenant protection and neighborhood preservation.
The plan would still allow retired or current law enforcement officers and the property's owner or tenant to carry, according to WGN.
"I can understand that they need the money," said Domingo Munoz Jr., 67, who retired from his last job as a clothing salesman and is vice president of the tenant association, at the center one recent morning.
When its pastor retired in 2000, Mr. Keyes became the church's third Assemblies of God minister and perhaps its most unusual tenant.
