East Village Landlord Tied to Milano's Dive Bar Faces $7M Foreclosure

Moshe Khoshkheraman, the East Village landlord whose holdings include the building at 51 E. Houston St. that houses Milano’s, the century-plus-old dive bar, is accused of defaulting on a $7M loan tied to a separate property he owns a few blocks away at 180 First Avenue, according to Crain’s New York Business. The apartment building is not the bar’s home. It is a four-story walk-up Khoshkheraman bought in 2022, and it is the one now headed toward foreclosure.

Why it matters

ACRIS shows Khoshkheraman’s entity took title to 180 First Avenue, Manhattan block 438, lot 9, on March 21, 2022, in an $8M deed recorded May 4, 2022. A $6.5M mortgage and matching assignment of leases and rents were recorded against the property that same day, the financing that backed the purchase. That mortgage is the debt Crain’s reports he has now defaulted on, roughly four years after he bought the building, consistent with Crain’s framing that he could lose a property he has owned for less than half a decade.

Milano’s being named in the headline is a reputation marker, not a legal one. Nothing in the record ties the bar’s building to the default. What the foreclosure threatens is a residential walk-up on First Avenue, the kind of building that keeps rent-regulated tenants in place regardless of who holds the mortgage or whether a receiver eventually steps in.

The numbers

ACRIS also shows the loan itself did not stay still. An assignment of mortgage (CRFN 2025000106440) and an assignment of leases and rents (CRFN 2025000106443), both dated November 20, 2024, were recorded April 18, 2025, close to a year and a half before the foreclosure story broke. That is a detail outside the original report: the debt on 180 First Avenue changed hands well before Khoshkheraman’s alleged default became public, which is often the point at which a loan moves from a bank’s own book to a buyer working distressed paper.

What’s next

Watch Manhattan Supreme Court for the foreclosure filing’s case index number and watch ACRIS for a notice of pendency against block 438, lot 9, which would mark the formal start of the action rather than a reported default. For more East Village and lower Manhattan coverage, see our New York market page.