This Brooklyn Landlord Just Canceled Rent for Hundreds of Tenants

“You don’t see that, especially in a landlord-tenant relationship in New York City,” Mr. Gentile, 28, said. “He’s amazing.”

As New York City started to shut down in mid-March, Mr. Gentile quickly lost his job. He was a lawyer for a personal injury firm who spent most of his time in courthouses, all of which were closed on March 18. There was little work for him outside the courtroom.

The law firm’s partners told him that they hope to rehire him when the economy rebounds, he said. But without a job and rent almost due, Mr. Gentile spent the end of March stressing about using his savings for bills, including what he and his fiancée had reserved for their wedding in November.

“It has alleviated a huge amount of stress that I have been having with the unemployment system in the state,” he said, adding that he had called the New York State Department of Labor roughly 240 times over two days in March to finally connect with a person to file for benefits.

For decades, Mr. Salerno has been a larger-than-life character in his part of Williamsburg, on the other side of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway from the ritzy high-rises near the East River. During the day, he runs the Salerno Auto Body Shop and gasoline station, which his father opened in 1959.

In the 1980s, Mr. Salerno started to buy vacant lots across Brooklyn to store cars damaged in accidents before they were repaired. In the late 1990s, he started to turn 18 of the lots into apartment buildings.

The repair shop and station are both open, though gasoline sales are down about half from a month ago, he said. He would prefer not to be working on people’s cars during the pandemic, but wanted to be there for his customers.

“Do I really want to do a simple oil change and a brake job?” Mr. Salerno said on the phone at the auto shop on Thursday. “No, but I have a lot of doctors and nurses who need their cars serviced.”