Dorian Geiger, Matthew Sedacca and Nicole Rosenthal
NY Post
August. 30, 2024
This real estate listing is out of this world.
An odd Brooklyn building that’s painted yellow and covered in ancient Egyptian motifs has hit the market — but it has a dark history as the home of a UFO-believing cult whose hateful leader has claimed he’s god from outer space.
The eye-catching temple and attached bookstore at the corner of Bushwick Avenue and Hart Street continues to function as a community center, gathering space and place of worship for the Nuwaubian Nation, who also call themselves Sabaeans.
“We got an offer for $6 million” for one of the buildings, a man who returned The Post’s phone calls from the number listed on newly-planted “For Sale By Owner” signs at the property on an otherwise quiet residential block in Bushwick.
“But we’re selling [the properties] as a bundle, we’re asking $5 to 6 million for both.”
The man, identified as Thomas Smith, said he was acting as a middleman between potential buyers and the Nuwaubian Nation, which has called the mysterious complex home for more than 40 years.
The 5,000-square-foot golden temple sits next to a three-story apartment complex and “All Eyes on Egipt” bookstore – which is also owned by the mystics under the LLC Holy Trinity Seed Ministries, according to property records.
The sale of the unofficial neighborhood landmark would mark a new chapter for the Nuwaubian Nation – described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a “hate group” which mixes “Black supremacist ideas with worship of the Egyptians and their pyramids, a belief in UFOs and various conspiracies related to the Illuminati and the Bilderbergers.”
At its peak in the 1970s and ‘80s, the group owned dozens of properties on adjacent streets in Bushwick, including 20 apartment buildings that housed 500 people as well as bookstores, a clothing store and a supermarket, according to the SPLC.
The compound at 717 and 719 Bushwick Ave. serves as the final vestige of the movement, according to property records.
The one-story temple itself has since been used as a gathering place for meetings and events, though several complaints to the city Department of Buildings dating back to 2013 allege the owners didn’t have a proper occupancy permit to do so.
A building manager at the temple, who identified himself as 37-year-old Senab York – the son of Nuwaubian Nation leader Malachi Z. York, formerly Dwight York — said it was “sad” to think the property could be sold and possibly knocked down and turned into an upscale condos like others popping up on Bushwick Avenue.
“A lot of people, they love taking pictures of this building,” he said. “They love it. People love Egypt…To see it in Bushwick, like, ‘this came out of nowhere.'”
The Nuwaubian Nation was helmed around 1970 by the senior York, who reportedly forced followers to give up their possessions and work for free – and those who did not meet their quotas were beaten, according to the SPLC. York also chose his followers’ spouses, “mating” them at his discretion.
“It’s about everything, from extraterrestrials to ancient civilizations to DNA to dark matter — it’s a little bit of everything… it’s a lot to unpack,” Senab York told The Post of his father’s teachings.
The cult leader and many of his followers eventually relocated to Putnam County, Georgia, where he built a massive compound dubbed Tama-Re consisting of two pyramids for $975,000 – in anticipation of a UFO slated to “visit Earth in 2003 and to take with it 144,000 chosen people,” according to news reports.
But the senior York was behind bars when the supposed time came.
Federal authorities raided the Georgia compound in 2002, and York was later sentenced to over 130 years in federal prison on multiple racketeering and child molestation convictions.
He’s currently living out his days in the ADX Florence supermax prison, which houses other infamous inmates such as Mexican drug lord and former Sinaloa Cartel leader El Chapo.
Their 79-year-old leader’s plight hasn’t stopped his followers in Bushwick from erecting a sign atop the bookstore building calling on the Republic of Liberia to repatriate York.
https://nypost.com/2024/08/30/us-news/extremist-ufo-cults-egyptian-themed-nyc-compound-hits-real-estate-market/
