It was led by Jesse Gray, a tenant organizer there since 1953.

Ms. Quinn, 32, stresses her years of working as a tenant organizer.

Ms. Mendez, who has worked as a tenant organizer with various groups, received 36 percent of the vote.

As a teen-age tenant organizer, she had grown frustrated with housing officials who challenged or ignored their every complaint.

Steven Busch is an artist and former tenant organizer who helped start the petition-gathering campaign this spring.

Neither tenant organizers nor the developer is thrilled.

For the first time, tenant organizers say, they had decided to try to shut down the meeting.

At the age of ten, she worked as a tenant organizer.

"They are absolutely wrong," Mayor Koch said later in the day, referring to the board members and tenant organizers opposed to the contract.

Joan Wheeler, a 37-year-old tenant organizer, said the apartments, built in the mid-1960's have long been in decline.