Two food trucks on the Oval at the same time! BBQ and Pizza!!! Gourmet, of course. Good for your heart and your weight. What a high-class place this is! And here I thought Stuyvesant Town was turning into a dump.
Thanks, Rose Associates!
BTW, I wonder how the surrounding stores that pay lofty rents to Rose Associates feel about these food trucks? Surely these food trucks are taking business away from them? Rent free. They probably won't complain for fear of Rose jacking up their rent come lease renewal time.
http://guestofaguest.com/nyc-restaurants/vermin-in-your-street-food-a-call-for-letter-grades/
ReplyDeleteStuyvesant Town: A parking lot runs through it.
ReplyDeleteRose has really brought a touch of class to the Oval. Unfortunately, it is low class. Lux Living seems to have found his calling obsessing over the mattresses and furniture dumped on the grounds and in the carriage rooms (where we always were allowed to dump it)and states Stuyvesant Town is not a living hell anymore because 99% of the "atrocities" discussed on his blog were created by Tishman Speyer and have now been rectified. I wish I could see the improvements, but I can't. I guess I have to get some Rose[Associates]-colored glasses. All I see is a continuing degradation of the property and lowering of the quality of life for the tenants.
ReplyDeleteHow about only one working elevator?!?
ReplyDeleteKorilla BBQ tacos are awesome!
ReplyDeleteHope they are with us more this summer!
Thanks for spreading the good word!
Lux can chime in here, but, again, I believe he wants to, and is, going in a different direction so that things can work better in ST/PCV. This means, obviously, that he has to have contact with Management. And if things improve because of this--and, yes, that includes effective furniture disposal--then good for him.
ReplyDelete>>Korilla BBQ tacos are awesome!
ReplyDeleteHope they are with us more this summer!
Thanks for spreading the good word!<<
And thanks for reminding me that I have to comment about Korilla on Yelp!
"Lux Living seems to have found his calling obsessing over the mattresses and furniture dumped on the grounds and in the carriage rooms (where we always were allowed to dump it)and states Stuyvesant Town is not a living hell anymore because 99% of the "atrocities" discussed on his blog were created by Tishman Speyer and have now been rectified. I wish I could see the improvements, but I can't."
ReplyDeleteThey only change I have noticed is the name of the management company on the door at 317 Avenue C.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Show of hands: who got fooled again by Mr. Rose?
And, as an aside, do you think he turned off HIS A/C today to support the cause?!?
I was going to do a year-in-charge report card on Rose Associates, but I think I'll move it up by a couple of months. Have to check when Rose officially took over from Tishman Speyer. I've seen some positive changes, but upon reflection I wonder about their value in face of the same-old/same-old.
ReplyDeleteLots of spin but no "win-win."
ReplyDeleteI've learned all I need to know about life from Judge Judy. My favorite nugget: "Don't pee on my leg and try to tell me it's raining."
Sure feels like pee to me.
I never wrote anything was "rectified". What I wrote was:
ReplyDelete"99.9% of the atrocities you see on this blog are representational of the "Tishman Speyer Years."...While Stuy Town now sits in the hands of CW Capital, our previous property manager, Rose Associates, Inc. was brought back in last year to restore what's left of the community. Though it is an uphill battle they are making progress each day."
The furniture dumping is one of many problems that affects the community which is why so many tenants send me photos.
Until there are enforceable rules and consequences for dumping furniture, a certain demographic is still going to dump it.
However, for the people who simply don't know when the correct times are because of the lack of signage in their buildings, if I can get them the correct info, it benefits all of us.
Until a few years ago, there were no garbage piles in front of our buildings. Trash bags on trash day (and only briefly), yes. Piles of furniture, mattresses, and other assorted crap? No. This was a policy instituted by TS and embraced by Rose. Still. It must be avoidable because it is a recent development in the 70 year history of the complex.
ReplyDeleteThere seem to be two different piles of crap these days: 1) the random filthy mattress, TV or chair, etc. and 2) the huge "Katrina-style" pile of former belongings and fixtures.
Type 1: clearly these are left by individuals. A couple of pieces of detritus--objectionable or otherwise--left out on a day (correct or not). As far as I am concerned, if you are charging (or trying to charge) $3 - 5,000/mo for this urban pioneer experience, reinvest some of that usury into picking up your former victims crap once a day. Court a transient population and you have to be responsible for cleaning up after it.
Type 2: the Katrina-style pile. No dormer lugged 2,000 lbs of heavy waste out to the curb simultaneously. Not to mention, they often include destroyed pressure walls, old kitchen cabinets, plumbing and carpets--in addition to a variety of household items, big and small. These piles are dumped by Rose staff--and not always on the appropriate dumping day.
With all due respect, while tenants should--without question--respect common rules and general decency, the garbage problem we are looking at is 80%+ management's responsibility and, in my opinion, 100% ignored by them.
I think the furniture dumped outside goes well with those greasy, smelly food trucks. If and when I have to dump any small pieces of furniture or an appliance (e.g. a microwave or small television) I will continue to leave it in the carriage room. Unless you have the strength (which I don't) to carry those things far it isn't possible to use curbside disposal. Getting into the elevator and to the carriage room is as much as we can manage. Remember, there are still quite a few of us elderly people living in Stuyvesant Town. However, we are not the ones who are dumping Ikea furniture and mattresses all over the place.
ReplyDeleteNot to mention, not all buildings have ramp access from the basement available to tenants. My building has those monster steps in the back. Only Rose A$$ociates has access to the ramp. If I want to drag an old piece of junk out the back I either have to take it down the front steps or up the back ones.
ReplyDeleteOr, of course, pay Mr. Rose...
Anon 3:26
ReplyDeleteThanks for being part of the problem and not the solution. Do you not have any friends or family to help you throw out small pieces of furniture now and then? Or is your existence one of solitude, you and your computer?
If you can find your way online to vent, you can find a phone and ring a friend or neighbor to help you toss an end table.
Whoever is trying to post outlandish insults directed at Adam Rose (stuff like "you are a..."), please stop it, because I'm not letting these through. So the point you wish to make in the body of your comment does not get seen. It lowers the discourse considerably to resort to that talk.
ReplyDeleteThe Korrila truck looks and smells like a piece of shit when it is parked by Trader Joe’s, never mind the Oval.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with anon 3:23 pm. We never used to have this problem with trash. The porters used to come round early every morning and take stuff off the floors. You weren't supposed to leave anything out after 9 am. It was perfectly acceptable to leave unwanted furniture in the "carriage" room, though I believe they asked that that only be done on a Wednesday. Before the recycling program we didn't have filth and trash in that area or anywhere else, for that matter. What has happened with garbage collection issues is all part of the reduction in services. Those awful food vending trucks at the Oval are a total eyesore and the conversion of the Oval from a pleasant park with grass and trees is also a reduction in services because it used to be one of the main benefits of living in Stuyvesant Town. Ah well, that's progress!
ReplyDeleteCan't the food trucks haul away trash?
ReplyDelete@The Bat: The food trucks ARE trash!
ReplyDelete"Thanks for being part of the problem and not the solution. Do you not have any friends or family to help you throw out small pieces of furniture now and then? Or is your existence one of solitude, you and your computer?
ReplyDeleteIf you can find your way online to vent, you can find a phone and ring a friend or neighbor to help you toss an end table."
Give me your phone number and I'll call you. OK?
They can't afford basics like porters to remove trash and furniture but they can afford glossy schedules of Lady Maya's events?
ReplyDeleteI wonder how much money ST/PCV saved by downsizing the porter staff. It almost seems to me that we have MORE porters working the buildings, but accomplishing less work. Of course, there is much more garbage around than ever before.
ReplyDeleteYeah, gone are the days when one porter would go through the entire building--daily--and pick up newspapers and other items that were not supposed to be thrown down the garbage chute. And every week or so, he would mop the linoleum floor. Now we're lucky, it seems, if a porter vacuums the hallway rugs once a month. And the smell. Bad idea to put in rugs.
I'm very disappointed in this place! I walked out my door and made it across the street without any food options. No smoothies in the lobby, no Bok Choy Bus on the loop. Why, I had to crawl to the diner and hoist myself into a booth before I saw food. I nearly died of starvation!
ReplyDeleteThe storage spaces in the buildings that were used as a temporary location for bulk trash have been re-purposed into revenue generating uses like Rental Storage Lockers. The recent discontinuation of the Trunk Storage Rooms will likely yield money making space for the landlord.
ReplyDeleteBulk trash used to be loaded out of the store rooms into those green ST/PCV stake trucks and then driven off property for disposal.
The only reason the property is such a mess is a matter of (the landlord's) economics.
So can you imagine the maintenance costs for tenants if this place ever goes condo/co-op?
ReplyDeleteSTR:
ReplyDeleteDON'T GET ME STARTED!
No one has a sense of what it costs to run this place. It is too "land rich" to be managed at a cost that most potential purchasers would find acceptable. It's a shame but it is probably true.
That said...too f-cking bad for the people who bought it!
They had better info than we do and they signed on the dotted line. Now they have to provide at least what would be considered minimum reasonable living conditions to the tenants. Most of us--you included--probably agree that it doesn't include piles of trash everywhere.
Too bad if they lose precious leasable space in the basement that could otherwise be used as storage lockers!
The people who run this place should really go home each night embarrassed about what they have done here. You and I know what it used to be like and this is a disgrace.
Thank you, 4:42 PM!
ReplyDeleteWhile I know we cannot likely return to the days we both remember, there must be a reasonable compromise that doesn't include trash piles in front of our homes.
Really.
I just can't imagine how we ever survived living in Stuyvesant Town without those gourmet food and coffee trucks! When the Oval was just a bucolic oasis in the City where we could go and enjoy a little fresh air and listen to song birds and watch the antics of the squirrels we just didn't know how deprived we were. When the fountain was off-limits as a foot bath and the grass was green and lush and not to be trampled on we were so deprived! My hope is that a McDonalds franchise with drive through facilities will be put right in the middle of the Oval. Then we will really be living in the height of luxury. As for the garbage disposal issues: how did we ever manage when we didn't have to schlep our bulk waste to the curb? Everyone knows that lugging your unwanted furniture to the curb is character-building and good for the soul. I think we should have a rota system whereby every tenant (especially the rent stabilized seniors) should have to take turns to vacuum the hallway carpets, scrub the floors and wipe up the student vomit. Only fair really. It's not like we are paying rent to the landlord and taxes to the City to have them dispose of our garbage. Make those frail old seniors do their share and do the jobs that the porters used to do. They have nothing else going for them in their lonely solitude! No wonder they are despised by the young and strong. Make those frail old people get out there and clean up the dog shit that the entitled crowd leave behind. After all, no young, strong entitled person should have to do anything THAT demeaning. All RS tenants should be made to have a huge RS branded on their foreheads so that we will know who we should hate and go over and kick them. So when can we expect that McD's to be put in the Oval? I'm waiting, Mr. Rose. A KFC would also be very welcome.
ReplyDeleteSo when is the Oval going to be turned into a dog run?
ReplyDeleteI'm sure if McDonald's had a food truck, it'd be here already.
ReplyDeleteWhoever ends up buying ST/PCV is going to have their hands full. It's one thing to own and operate a property this size with 25,000 post war Americans who were appreciative for the opportunity to raise their families here. It's quite another to manage 40,000+ people with present day needs and necessities living in a time when consideration for others is as dead as chivalry.
ReplyDeleteTwo words: "Oval Mac"
ReplyDeleteRay Kroc would have been proud...
To anon at 4:14 pm. I personally think that any senior citizen living here who is such an obvious loser as to have no muscular young friends and family to help them take their heavy stuff to the curbside should be whipped and beaten to within an inch of their life, then made to clean up the recycling area with their tongue and, just to make sure they don't repeat the offense, they should be taken to the Oval and stoned to death. Just who do these people think they are? Just because they paid taxes, fought wars and were the backbone of this great town for all of their productive, healthy lives when they were strong doesn't give them the right to any dignity and compassion. You have exactly the right idea, my righteous friend. Such weakness and frailty should be responded to with exactly the harsh and judgmental contempt that you and I hold dear. Lonely old people are worthless and should be exterminated.
ReplyDeleteAnon 10:35 PM,
ReplyDeleteThere is really no need to take it quite to that level. After all, they could simply be forced to pay for some package of Atrocities that would handle these chores for them. Sure...some additional charges may apply and there is no guarantee of performance but, still, no need to take it to the point of stoning!
Ridiculous.
We live in a civilized society.
A regimen of psychoactive drugs and electroshock should be sufficient and would be somewhat more humane.
Or, maybe, they could just take the crap out of the basement like they used to...
I think it's outrageous that an elderly person who is not strong enough to carry any broken appliances to the curb and doesn't have friends and family available to do it for them should have internet access in their apartment! What is the world coming to? They should never be allowed to express their feelings online. Who gave these useless old farts permission to have an opinion, let alone a computer and internet access!
ReplyDeleteI’ve read a lot of discourse on this issue and it occurs to me that there are just three steps required to solve the garbage problem.
ReplyDeleteHere they are, Mr. Rose:
1) Stop telling your tenants to throw their garbage in front of their buildings
2) Stop telling your employees to dump our garbage in front of our buildings
3) Instruct your employees to pick up garbage when they see it in front of our buildings
That’s it.
If you do #1 & 2, you won’t have to do #3 for more than a week. Not even a week. The problem will be solved.
Let’s face it, this is a management--induced problem. You think you can make some extra money by charging tenants to haul away their crap so you told them they had to take it out to the curb themselves if they didn’t want to pay you to do it for them. Without getting into a long discussion of how that plan actually played out, it clearly has not worked well for anyone. Even if you were successful in scraping a few bucks from the old, infirm or lazy here and there, it is clear that the general devaluation of the property has likely far exceeded any money you may have made.
It doesn’t take your staff any more time to haul out the garbage when the truck is actually there to pick it up than it does to do it three days earlier—-and leave it sitting outside for all of us to see and enjoy. TS may have concocted this stupid policy but your inertia has kept it going, Mr. Rose.
Time for Plan B.
While we are asked by Con Ed & NYC to conserve
ReplyDeleteelectric energy (see flyers). Rose is allowing two
large, smelly food trucks plugged in all day long
to our Oval electric outlets. No rent & free juice for them too.
Brilliant!
Good point.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, and they get ca$h incentives for reducing power consumption on high-use days.
ReplyDeleteAs for the tenants: consider using a wet washcloth to stay cool--just don't use too too much water...
These food trucks are the stupidest idea. The Mud Truck was briefly here, in 2008, I believe, but not seen since this year.
ReplyDeleteI wonder who thinks up these ideas? I wish we could pin every single dumb idea to a name, so the culprit could be shamed and, possibly, if thinking up too many dumb ideas, fired.
ST's Director of Programing, Lady Maya, was speaking out on behalf of the food trucks in last week's T & V, but the food truck idea seems to be too low-class for her; she's into filling up the Oval Essentials with cutesy classes and events like Sexy Disco, or whatever the hell that was.
True stupidity emanates from the top and flows down to the masses...er...tenants.
ReplyDeleteUltimately, the yay or the nay goes to Adam Rose. I thought he was sharper than to allow these food dives into the Oval. He's pissing off the food stores that rent from him along 1st Ave (this I heard), while ruining the look of park-like oasis he has been trying to resurrect. Usually things are done around here for prospective renters, a "selling point," but I've yet to see this being promoted on the outside, though there's still time.
ReplyDeleteI'm off to bed. A long and tiring and hot/humid day.
ReplyDeleteSo further comments will have to wait till tomorrow to be posted.
Night.
Good Night, Mr. STR. Your blog is great and so are all the good folks who avail themselves of it in order to express feelings we never could voice otherwise! It almost feels like we live in a democracy! Remember when we did live in the most democratic (with a small "d") city in the world back in the pre-Emporor Bloomberg days? Those were the days. I feel like launching into the Archie and Edith theme song. But I won't. Just have a good night and stay cool. Actually, staying cool wasn't an option a few years ago in Stuyvesant Town. We had to suffer (and I mean SUFFER) through the summer months without A/C. We oldsters earned our stripes and the right to not be sneered at by the youngsters who think they are God's Gift with their parentally paid for cubicles in what used to be real apartments lived in by people who worked for a living and didn't expect anything from the world except a little respect and the right to live in affordable housing with a few little amenities like clean buildings and our garbage taken away without anyone making us feel like we were expecting too much coddling from our landlord. That and vomit-free elevators was pretty much all we asked for - and got!
ReplyDeleteThe McDonalds idea was already bantered about by Adam and his crew but due to the large number of rats in ST they decided to go with Taco Bell instead!
ReplyDeleteAs I prep to GTFOH, I noticed that the Joy Ride truck is running, with no electrical outlet, full blast with its abhorrent loud noise and full carbon monoxide blast, at the NW corner of playground 12 today (7/22), destroying the peace and tranquility of the Oval. Because playground 12 is closed today, no carcinogen gasses for the kiddies-this time. God help anyone else.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe Rose is so stupid as to ask the most obnoxious truck (noisy and smelly) to come here on such a hot 100-degree plus day. If you want to do residents a favor who are walking outside, why not give out free cold water at Oval Lounge, instead? Noiseless and it doesn't smell and doesn't create a visual blight. Stupid and, now, arrogant.
ReplyDeleteRE: July 22, 2011 2:10 PM
ReplyDeleteAdam made the right move on that one. Even HE knows that rats won't ring that Bell!
As for some of the recent tenants...
I can't believe Rose is so stupid as to ask the most obnoxious truck (noisy and smelly) to come here on such a hot 100-degree plus day.
ReplyDeleteYou can't believe it. Where have you been? This is par for the course for Adam and his ASSociates. I would have expected no less from these buffoons. I'm sure they will have Mr. Softee in the oval for December, January and February!
Rose ASSociates is basically saying to everyone, "If you don't like it you can leave".
ReplyDeleteThis is their form of tenant harassment.
Sad, but true.
I have an idea for Ms Maya:
ReplyDeleteSince the Oval is a walk way, Not a street.
Move the Street food trucks to the StuyTown loops
where they should be.
The free electric outlets for them could be extended
to the loops no charge, on us.
Why are those things here? What revenue do they bring in for Rose? Don't they actually COST money to have them on the property in the form of electricity, litter, degradation of the immediate environment, etc. Also, why should be have to have such fume-belching monstrosities right under our noses? Surely this is not completely legal. Stuytown wants to be "green?" I don't think so. Not under the bumbling regime of Mr. Adam Rose! He must be getting to old to be doing this any more and he hires these idiots to add to the woes of this once-lovely place that is under his stewardship.
ReplyDeleteThere was a time when the Tenants Association would have reared up with loud indignation about this outrageous rape and pillage of the property by Rose and its food vending trucks. However, the TA seems to be totally silent on this issue. There is nothing on their website concerning the quality of life issues and no place for anyone to express an opinion. The TA does still exist, right? I wonder why they have become so invisible and silent?
ReplyDeleteOne of the objects of Tishman Speyer was, indeed, to make this place more "green," environmentally. That was one of the reasons given for all the plantings. The air quality would improve.
ReplyDeleteNow we have pollution causing food trucks at the Oval, right near the children's playground.
I think that "Lady Maya" is to Adam Rose what that crazy Sadik-Kahn is to Mayor Bloomberg: someone hired to make a bad situation worst to enable a long term goal. In Bloomberg's case it is his congestion pricing dream; don't know really what Mr. Rose's motive is. Let's just hope he doesn't emulate the Emperor (with no clothes, at this point) and bring in a drunken old crone (a la Cathie Black) who only recognizes a screwdriver that comes in a glass to be the head of Maintenance! Then we're really screwed every which way up the kazoo!
ReplyDeleteIt's not a leap to think the more vitriolic the comments are with regards to Rose and Lady Maya, the more they are going to say "fuck 'em" and do what they want.
ReplyDeleteI don't disagree with most of the comments, but they are in a position to stick it to us and that's exactly what they are doing.
That could be true, but I've just about had it with them. It's a two-way street with Management and Tenants, and if they give us hell, we can also provide some heat.
ReplyDeleteMake it as expensive as possible for them to run this place. Put every piece of garbage down the chute, regardless of what it is; keep the lights and air conditioners on 24/7 if possible and don't pay rent until the 10th of the month. Every little hurts.
ReplyDelete(Also take 2-hour showers!)
rent strike
ReplyDeleteWe have to wait them out.
ReplyDeleteThat said, it doesn't have to be a passive experience...
Im with 8:08.
ReplyDeleteConservation is their problem.
The more we use, the more they lose.
Screw in the CFLs when they finally cry uncle.
I have a stockpile of at least 5 years worth of 100w and 150w incandescent bulbs.
ReplyDeleteAnon at 10:23 AM on 7/24 said "There was a time when the Tenants Association would have reared up with loud indignation about this outrageous rape and pillage of the property by Rose and its food vending trucks. However, the TA seems to be totally silent on this issue. There is nothing on their website concerning the quality of life issues and no place for anyone to express an opinion. The TA does still exist, right? I wonder why they have become so invisible and silent?"
ReplyDeleteFor all intent and purpose the TA doesn't exist anymore. So few people pay dues or keep their membership current that the TA cant even muster up enough people to hold an election. They have made themselves irrelevant by putting all their eggs in one basket, that basket being a conversion. The TA and Dan Garodnick were so gung ho for a conversion that they sold their souls thinking residents of ST and PCV wanted to buy and have them (the TA and Dan)run the place that they no longer hold any power. Rose ASSociates laughs at them now. Lux Living summed it up best when he said (I'm paraphrasing) that the TA couldn't run a bake sale much less ST/PCV. I concur, except I would throw Dan Garodnick in the same boat.
Anon 12:29 PM:
ReplyDeleteI've got at least that many 100W but where did you get the stockpile of 150's? Impressive.
The 100W bulbs were a steal so I run them from sunup to sundown. Back of the envelope, I figure I pull about 3,000W all day long since I work from home.
Thanks, Adam!
I have no doubt that most of these comments were left by those "old-timers" who enjoy the luxury of rent-controlled apartments. You seem to be very vocal when it comes to criticizing the way Rose manages the property,however quiet when it comes to your neighbors illegally sub-letting their apartments, and fudging their taxes to make it look like stuy town is their primary residence. I, if you can't already tell, pay market rate. We market rate renters are constantly made to feel unwelcome, unwanted, and as though we are the cause of all the "new problems". In reality, if it were not for our financial contribution to stuy town, it would be in an even worse economic position than it is today. I am constantly sneered at and told to get my dog out of stuy-town, which my dollars, not yours, pay to maintain. If I were a rent-controlled resident, I would shut my mouth and count my blessings. As for the food trucks, quality of living is what draws people like us to stuy town, without us this place would be shuttered and filthy. If you want flowers in your gardens, electricity in your hallways, and security on your walkways, be quiet and enjoy a taco. Alienation of your patrons, will get you nowhere, remember that.
ReplyDeleteAnon 11:26AM, this is a familiar canard and a familiar voice. Little doubt that you are the same solo voice that goes on ST blogs to rail against "rent-controlled" tenants. The fact that we, in Stuy Town, are rent-stabilized, not rent-controlled, nearly indicates that you do not even live here. But if you do live here, try to brush up on your facts, firstly. Secondly, no rent-stabilized tenant that I know of is giving market-rate tenants here any grief, so if you ARE getting grief from them, it may be your personality, more than anything else.
ReplyDeleteHow many rats does it take to make Stuyvesant Town notice. The overgrown foliage is just a nesting place where rodents and squirrels live and reproduce. Last time when I checked with the health dept., this was unacceptable. I looks more like a jungle everyday. sometimes more is not better. What does this take for a tennant to get bit by a rat. Before you know it,rodents will work their way onto floors, and then for sure the health dept. will be notified. We pay too much rent for rodents and bugs to be taking over. SHAME ON YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDelete