Newcomers to Peekskill continue to bring economic vitality to many parts of the city, but that growth path is beginning to slip.

In 2020, the first year of the pandemic, the city added over 1,000 new residents, a more than 4 percent increase, and grew again by another 500 residents the following year.

However, the total Peekskill population has declined the past two years, bringing the latest count to 25,442 in 2023 compared to 25,740 in 2021. 

New businesses are always appearing and many others, here for years continue to thrive, filling most of the buildings in the downtown and the outlying neighborhoods.

Grant funding from the state of New York designed to help supercharge economic growth is producing results, and more seed money is in the pipeline, potentially providing upwards of $20 million as a funding accelerator to help entrepreneurs create the companies of the future and draw even more private capital investments.

But amidst all that daily activity on city streets, including a thriving restaurant industry that draws many people to Peekskill and the ever-growing popularity of the Paramount Theater, there are empty buildings that create a blight in pockets of the city.

They range widely in size and condition. Just north of the Monument on Highland Avenue, several square city blocks of the former White Plains Linen buildings are a crumbled wreck, some of them the remains of a fire years ago that have never been cleaned up.

Down the street several blocks from there, the abandoned former RAL Plumbing building sits, with a developer trying to build a magnificent new apartment building that remains in the planning approval process after several years of first being proposed.

Empty buildings, with boarded up windows and trash on the street, present a picture of a rundown city. 

Several former Peekskill landmarks have been vacant for years. The Workers’ Compensation building at the corner of North Division and Main has been empty for decades, although a proposal from the Children’s Village could turn it into new affordable housing. The former Capri restaurant on Washington Street, the empty and now-crumbling Center Diner on Bank Street, the former Ford Piano building in the center of the downtown, and the former Hugo’s restaurant across the street from the Paramount Theater were all once hubs of activity where people gathered and brought life to the community. 

For many longtime residents, one of those former landmarks of Peekskill was the Modern Bakery on South Street.

The mystery of 933 South Street

Peekskill families back to the Great Depression of the 1930s found the Modern as the place where warm donuts and tasty rolls were always in glass cases of enticing treats, either during the week or after Mass on Sundays at the Assumption Church just around the corner.

Owners Ann and Mafred Gallwitz ran the Modern for many years and then sold the business to Joann Boniello in 2006 after they retired. But eventually the bakery was closed and the building at 933 South St. has been sitting empty for more than a decade.

In an April 2023 article the Herald reported that Peekskill’s Economic Development department held preliminary discussions with the building’s owner about creating a business incubator to give new small businesses a retail outlet to sell their products. “The new owner is active in a local church and has a longstanding relationship with community institutions,” a city official told the Herald. Peekskill officials originally discussed the proposal with Reverend Estaban Sanchez, the pastor at the Assumption Church.

Rev. Sanchez came to Peekskill in 2017 as administrator of the Assumption parish and was appointed pastor in January 2019. He was reappointed for another six years by the Archdiocese of New York this year. After being ordained a priest in 2013, Sanchez was assigned to St. Peter’s parish in Haverstraw from 2013 to 2015. He then became a parochial vicar of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan from 2015 to 2017. 

In July of this year, the city of Peekskill Water and Sewer Department posted a violation notice on the front door of 933 South St for failure to complete a required test of the backflow device. The devices prevent sewage from a building from flowing back into the city sewer lines in case of a backup in a building’s pipes. The potential fines are up to $500 a day.

The violation states that the building owner is PNM Associates LLC. However, records in the Peekskill assessor’s office show the owner as 933 South St LLC at an address in Riverdale, New Jersey.

Two deeds, one in November 2021 and a second in January 2022 transferred ownership of the building to 933 South St LLC from PNM Associates for a total amount of $550,000.

A city official contacted by the Herald did not respond to a question regarding the citation and the city records regarding the ownership of the property.

Who owns 933 South St. – and what are they doing with it

Public records disclose that the business address of 933 South St LLC is a house owned by John Jilleba, a certified public accountant in New Jersey. Jilleba did not return several calls from the Herald, but a person working in his office said they believed he no longer owned the building in Peekskill.

An entity information document on file with the New York state Division of Corporations lists Esteban Sanchez of 131 Union Ave. in Peekskill as the agent of record for 933 South St LLC.

Reached by the Herald, Rev. Sanchez said he is one of six members of a consortium, including a couple of parishioners, who own the building. Father Sanchez said Jilleba is the “main signer” and that a new buyer is interested in purchasing the building.

“The previous owner had a lot of violations on the property so it was a nightmare and a challenge to fix that,” Father Sanchez said. 

“From the outside it looks beautiful but inside the building damage is already pretty bad. Water, the snow, a lot of leaking, so we applied for an emergency construction plan because the roof was going to collapse so we want to stabilize things in the building. That’s the only thing we have done because the roof was coming down. The work is still going on.”

And a travel agency called “Peregrinos [Pilgrims] USA” lists 933 South St. as its business address. Rev. Sanchez has gone on travel tour “pilgrimages” with local parishioners around the world for several years. 

These tours included trips to Ecuador, Mexico and Israel in 2023 and a two-week trip to China this past May. Upcoming destinations include Dubai and India in January 2025 and a rescheduled tour to Vietnam, now planned for May 2025.

A sales letter directed to other parish priests in the U.S. promoting the Peregrinos USA tours is signed by “George Hidalgo, Commercial Director.” He is the son of Jorge Hidalgo, the maintenance manager of the Assumption Church.

Rev. Sanchez said he goes on tours run by Peregrinos throughout the world during his one month of vacation given to priests.

“I travel as a person, not as a priest. Even the church is not involved in those traveling. They are not my tours – we don’t promote tours, we join a tour is the difference. I assume the people pay the money to the tour operator. As I said before, we are not allowed to touch money,” Father Sanchez said.

When contacted by the Herald for comment, Joseph Zwilling,  Director of Communications, Archdiocese of New York replied that he had no update to share on the matter because he was informed that Father Sanchez was away.