THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

If you apply enough "Benjamins" and "Tubmans" to the problem. It will cause some problems down the line if you are still around when somebody notices. Like this simple building solution in New York City.

During the same week in November that an obscure New York City agency lifted a protective covenant on a nursing home on the Lower East Side — an alteration that is now the subject of at least three inquiries — a similar move was playing out in Harlem.

Few people knew that the agency, the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, had accepted $875,000 in exchange for lifting a deed restriction, in place since 1976, that required a corner lot at St. Nicholas Avenue and 152nd Street to be used only by nonprofit cultural organizations in the area.

Neighbors who learned about the change after the fact feared that the lot, owned by the Dance Theater of Harlem, would soon end up in the hands of developers. What they did not know, at that point, was that a developer who made a financial contribution to one of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s political causes was already in contract to buy the property. The developer, BRP Companies, closed on the sale last month for $3.1 million.

The process by which the deed restriction on the unremarkable but nonetheless valuable Harlem parcel was lifted in many ways mirrors the one involving the Lower East Side nursing home, known as Rivington House.

The decision to amend the nursing home deed, for $16 million, is being investigated by Eric T. Schneiderman, the New York State attorney general; the city’s comptroller, Scott M. Stringer; and the city’s Department of Investigation.

The transactions in Harlem are likely to face new scrutiny. Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, has said he was unaware of the Rivington House deal and ordered a review of the process for removing such deed restrictions imposed by the city. The head of the administrative services agency is scheduled to testify at a City Council budget hearing on Friday. And the Council is planning a separate hearing on deed restrictions in the coming weeks.

As little public notice as there was for the contentious deal on the Lower East Side, which resulted in a developer of luxury condominiums buying the nursing home property in February for $116 million, the decision to remove all restrictions on the Harlem property got even less.

The local community board was not informed. Neither was the local councilman, Mark Levine, or the Manhattan borough president, Gale A. Brewer. A notice of a public hearing appeared on a back page of the City Record for a single day in April 2015. No one showed up at the hearing to testify.

“We found out after it was lifted by just looking up the deed,” said April Tyler, chairwoman of the community board’s land use committee. “I think this is worth highlighting and investigating.”

Money talks and bullshit walks in New York City.