Our landlord, BLACKSTONE, can't handle Stuy Town and Peter Cooper Village. There is a lack of enforcement of certain "rules," and no amount of notice to this alleviates the problems. We are continually being told half-truths and fabrications. And we have no viable Tenants organization, despite our TA asking for dues all the time. So far, the politicians have proven to be basically useless. A typical New York story.
Friday, January 16, 2015
The 119th REBNY Gala
If you couldn't make it or misplaced your invitation, not to worry, here's a run-down:
The REBNY 2015 illustration Commercial Observer along with the Gala attendee photos says a lot about this upcoming year.
http://commercialobserver.com/2015/01/rebny-2015/
REBNY as God barreling through the heavens stretching out his finger to endow new REBNY head John Banks with the spark of life.
Michelangelo is rolling over in his grave.
"Perhaps the best-known image from the Sistine Ceiling today is Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam, in which God stretches out his finger to endow Adam with the spark of life. In this scene, the two focal characters are set in contrast. Adam is depicted as earthbound and slightly sluggish, while God has a commanding presence and appears to be barreling through the heavens surrounded by a cadre of angels."
http://www.learner.org/courses/globalart/work/78/
Then again REBNY does write all the laws of the land.
"God writes on us with his finger, in certain traditions of theology. In the Jewish tradition, that’s how he writes the tablets of the Ten Commandments for Moses—he sort of lasers them with his finger. The finger is the conduit through which God’s intelligence, his ideas and his morality seep into Man. And if you look at that painting very closely, you see that God isn’t actually looking at Adam, he’s looking at his own finger, as if to channel his own instructions and thoughts through that finger.”
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-measure-of-genius-michelangelos-sistine-chapel-at-500-123313873/#SHuZt3VdSPyxt3MY.99 Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter
If they think voter turnout was low for Dems in 2014, wait until 2016 and the midterm elections in 2018. Not a chance any of them are getting a vote with the way they are using their offices. That is what you get for depressing the people.
Also thanks to the commentator for the City Council Speaker photo with Speyer and Spinola and the photo with Mayor De Blasio with Speyer which makes me ask why is de Blasio hugging as if this is more then professional, as if it is some kind of frat house eternal bond friendship? If he weren't the Mayor would these REBNY men let him in the party? Fair weather friends only friends when it is profitable.
“6:40 p.m.: New York City Council Member Dan Garodnick tells CO why he’s at REBNY: “It’s my second [REBNY gala]. First of all, this is my district and there are a lot of active land use and real estate-related issues that we deal with on a regular basis. And this is a good place to catch up.”
A very "safe" political statement which says nothing. So depressing. Off topic, but last night, at least in Sty Town, was Bromageddon. The screaming and Woo Hooing, outside and inside, was off the charts. At one point last night, I called PS (around 11.45 PM) and couldn’t even tell them from what apartment the insanity was coming from, it was that bad.
Wow, inspiring STR blog reading this week. Thanks.
I appreciate the beauty and genius that is, or was, the Architecture Design of Stuyvesant Town before the vulgar glass / concrete amenities. A favorite story is of the Black Woman, Beverly Loraine Greene, believed to be the first African American woman architect in the United States. Greene earned Bachelor of Science degree in Architectural Engineering from University of Illinois in 1936. One year later she earned Master's of Science degree in City Planning and Housing from the same university.
December 28, 1942, at age 27, Greene was registered in State of Illinois as an architect. After completing the second degree, Greene returned to her hometown, initially worked for Chicago Housing Authority. Greene was one of the first African Americans in the agency. Despite her education and her official recognition as an architect, Greene found it difficult to obtain jobs in the profession.
She moved to New York City in 1945 to work on the planned Stuyvesant Town private housing project in lower Manhattan being built by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.
Given her past experiences, and the Company's prior announcement African Americans would not be allowed to live in Stuyvesant Town, Greene believed she would not be hired. She applied anyway and to her surprise she was the first architect employed on the project."
"Doors thrown open within two years of war’s end, Peter Cooper Village–Stuyvesant Town (first buildings completed in 1947) embodied ideals of victorious Allied Powers. A neighborhood unto itself, PCVST (known informally as Stuyvesant Town) was a modernist garden city that provided to thirty thousand middle-class New Yorkers an equal opportunity to enjoy the suburban idyll. Dozens of thirteen-story red-brick towers march up and across from 14th to 23rd Street, First Avenue to Avenue C, flanking eighty acres of Parkland.
No longer would American cities subsist without sunlight and air and grass.
Democracy triumphant, a spirited egalitarianism swept up the nation’s urbanists, who eagerly propagated a new world order of efficient and healthful living."
"For all its egalitarian élan, Stuyvesant Town would not admit African American renters. Civil rights activists fought ten years for desegregation, achieving nominal success in early fifties upon gaining traction among white renters. Confronted with hypocrisy of Stuyvesant Town’s equal opportunity promotional campaign, these New Yorkers demanded a neighborhood akin to the country that had withstood fascism, a community free and open.
Stuyvesant Town still stands out, and so stands for, the enormous physical ramifications of urban renewal. Zipping down the FDR Drive, the road swings out in a great arc, into the East River. The motley, spindly Manhattan skyline vanishes—briefly, perceptibly—boxed out by a hulking phalanx of rusty X’s, conjoined and staggered.
Among the earliest recipients of municipal aid, Stuyvesant Town warned of the human costs of mass housing construction. PCVST dislodged three thousand families; in all, New York renewal would evict one hundred thousand individuals from their homes. The victims, a disproportionate fraction of whom were African American, earned slum clearance the ugly moniker of “Negro removal.”
But in 1952, the civil rights victory at Stuyvesant Town quietly sustained the promise of the postwar period, for a time."
With it's history of fighting for what is right, Stuyvesant Town is a community and property worth fighting to preserve.
Good thinking. NY will turn into a wonderland for you and me with the GOP running the place. They're not in with Wall Street and big real estate. Not at all.
Money buys access. Until that changes or shifts significantly, deBlasio and every other politician will more likely be photographed shaking their hands than shaking yours.
To 9.52 PM and 7.25 AM. Full disclosure, I held my nose and voted for de Blasio and Cuomo during the general election. I voted for Thompson and Teachout during the primary. I assume you all voted in the past for Pataki, then Bloomberg*, then Lhota for the last election. Pataki, the Republican led NYS Senate, and Bloomberg are responsible for around 80% of the horror that the middle class endures here. Peter Vallone and Anthony Weiner fill out the rest of that RE industry troll card. You do realize that you currently live in a heavily NYS/NYC regulated, socialist based, housing complex. Your party, The Republican Party, does not believe in ANY NYC residential housing regulations. Period. So for the next election, what Republican candidate will you vote for?
*So called Independent was a major Republican, he donated millions to the NYS Republican Party campaign.
Not only the student parties but peter cooper couple here with young children running jumping on bare floors no carpets
Tons of playgrounds people - let's take the kiddies out and ask them to stop running and jumping on bare floors. Other people live underneath us - REMEMBER other people --- other people ---
Anony 7.06 PM. You are so correct, I am in Sty Town, and I have same issue here as well. I am surrounded by dorm apartments and one clueless single mother apartment. There is ZERO 80% carpet enforcement by Ms. D. HaberSHAM! But I will continue to call PS, over and over, make my 311 entries, etc. Management is counting on us not to respond.
Please remove these photos, STR. My stomach can't take any more. I am all out of Peptobismal and am puking up my guts just clicking onto your blog and seeing these hideous, satanic cretins giving us their evil, perverted grins. Madam Toussaide's Chamber of Horrors doesn't have any more evil and satanic images than these.
2:21 pm: Don't ASSUME anything. I never voted for Pataki, Bloomberg or Lhota. I did vote for Teachout and Wu and wrote in their names in the last election. I would choose not to vote at all rather than vote for a republican because I believe that the Repubs are regressive, divisive, racist and utter filth. That also goes for DINOS.
Seems there are a few politicians who did not attend who have in the past, and maybe are beginning to realize attendance at this anti-tenant REBNY fundraiser is a betrayal of Public Trust. For the ones who attended they are showing their real colors, even the ones who gave odd replies to the reporter on why they are attending this anti-tenant group's party. Great articles STR - thanks for keeping us in the loop. Let's hope more politicians realize attending anti-tenant parties = anti-constituent and the remaining are slapped with ethics penalties and or booted from Public Office. Still remaining problem, what are we going to do about the anti-tenant / pro-owner REBNY lawyer the PCVST "Tenant" Association hired so we can get better, pro-tenant representation that will help keep us in our homes, help with the Quality of Life issues, help get an audit and our money back on the renovation overcharges, and fix the mci charges? Didn't someone comment we have a right to see the renovation charges and increase calculations on our apartments? Couldn't we get a pro-tenant lawyer to demand some of these things?
11.14 PM, 2.21 PM here. Thanks. 4.26 AM. You have made good points but I am still waiting to see a viable TA alternative created here, especially by the usual suspect posters who equivocate the TA with CWC(?). There are many grunt TA volunteers (I’m one of them) who work on the QOL issues here and who think the conversion scheme is pie in the sky but what’s the alternative organization/game plan that will be created? Waiting. That was tried and failed some time ago due to lack of interest. Anyone who thinks that the tenants here, the majority clueless and docile (especially long term), on an individual basis, can make a difference on the big issues is blowing smoke. Don’t get me wrong, we all need to file DHCR overcharges, file with the DOB when needed, call PS, file 311’s, contribute to and volunteer for the effective tenant pro NYS RS PACS, etc. If the fix is truly in, Fortress buys and the dormfication/commercialization/destruction continues as the elderly die and the middle age moves away in frustration, then, like the Philippines in 1941/1942 WW II, we are just fighting a read guard action that will result in defeat, we are the “Battling Bastards” of PCVST.
Good thinking! After all, the GOP in NY absolutely takes no $$$ from Wall Street and the RE industry and is renowned here in NYC for all that they have done to strengthen and protect rent regulations and are absolutely not responsible for the MCI loopholes and vacancy decontrol and all those other things that resulted in $5000+ a month 2 bedroom STPCV apartments --- that's the responsibility of the Dems! And of course those GOP Mayor Bloomberg era 9.5% rent increases for a 2 year lease never happened!
January 17, 2015 at 7:25 AM and
January 17, 2015 at 4:37 PM and
January 17, 2015 at 3:30 PM
shrewd! And here I thought the GOP has had the State Senate majority for some 50 years and is world famous for loving NYC tenants and the rent regulations that protect them and is not at all responsible --- Pataki either --- for absolutely screwing NY tenants and their stupid rent regulations in the hoo hoo! Also. Tenant activists are thrilled that the GOP took the majority of the Senate again after the NYC RE industry poured money into their campaigns!
Wow. Good week of posts. Grateful to STR and commentators these past years. I love the passion in this community. What a year, a few years.
A Review to date.... PART 1
This community is passionate and is being betrayed. Business interests are taking over any interests of the people.
We need to stop wasting time answering / asking calls for new TA. All allies named in Dan's letter will block a new and real Tenant's Association from forming.
Dan made that threat clear in his letter. He will stop at nothing for his agenda, "nobody is going to shut us out of this process."
He did not say he will stop at nothing to protect tenants eg fraudulent rent charges we pay every month, bogus mci charges, thousands of dorms, construction of open space, etc that he enabled since 2008.
It is not a threat to other buyers thinking of purchasing PCVST.
Clear threat is to tenants who are revealing financial and quality of life assaults on people and property. Reports that get in Dan's way of his business interests, the process getting his seat at the table.
Because reporting overcharges, unsafe conditions, and atrocities here in PCVST could impact Dan's "seat at the table" we are supposed to pay fraudulent rent overcharges every month, fraudulent mci charges, stripped of quality of life every day and night for years.
Clear business goal - nothing will get in his way of a seat at the table - not an overcharged tenant struggling to pay rent, arboricide, construction, deteriorating conditions, etc. Evident the mass evictions and over-development. Everyone who reported anything to Dan now knows why their council person ignored them.
They double cross and cross lines to block and stop anyone in their way of a seat at the table.
For years we challenged the student population, construction, rent overcharges, and it is met with a brick wall of lip-service-and-no-action from Dan, the TA, lawmakers. Remember this battle of 2012?
http://stuytownreport.blogspot.com/2012_03_01_archive.html STR: "My question is: Why hasn't anything been done about this crafty misuse of the intent of rent stabilization laws? Where are the city's politicians to stop this type of leasing behavior? Why is it that we are looking at this, living through this, when such rapid turnover rentals should have been made illegal years ago?"
In 2015 Lucas Chu's is same scheme. Again lip service from ta board AFTER STR revealed the scheme and tenants protested on T&V. Kyle Freedman and Lucas Chu etc scams are the same but Chu's somewhat better at hiding affiliations of those in the scam.
To repeat STR's call, where are the lawmakers protecting tenants?
They are very busy passing laws in record time for REBNY!
That's not saying much of anything when it comes to tenants and rental housing issues. If the GOP had their way, tenants would have no rights at all.
When it comes to NY politics, Wall Street and Real Estate try to influence Democrats, but they outright own the GOP. That's why the RE industry spent so much money on upstate GOP candidates this past election: to maintain a GOP majority in the State Senate. And they got the results they wanted. In addition, real estate has also bought a few Democrats-in-name-only in safe Democratic districts (see Pedro Espada, and, currently, Jeff Klein's Independent Democrats) to vote with the GOP against tenants on rent regulation and affordable housing issues. Democrats in the Assembly can pass all the pro-tenant bills in the world, but unless the GOP majority in the State Senate passes the same bills too, there's nothing for the Governor to sign into law.
If we had an actual Democrat in Gov Cuomo, he might have been able to force a more pro-tenant agenda on the majority GOP in the State Senate. Now, after the crappy results in the last election, Assembly Dems and Cuomo will have to horse trade just to get rent regulations renewed this coming June. Getting them strengthened looks like a real longshot.
10:41 am I agree with you completely "Don’t get me wrong, we all need to file DHCR overcharges, file with the DOB when needed, call PS, file 311’s, contribute to and volunteer for the effective tenant pro NYS RS PACS, etc"
And if as you say...
"Anyone who thinks that the tenants here, the majority clueless and docile (especially long term)"
...it is because the TA Board isn't training, teaching providing links and materials on file DHCR overcharges, file with the DOB when needed, call PS, file 311’s, contribute to and volunteer for the effective tenant pro NYS RS PACS, etc. We had to learn it on our own and just talked to a neighbor yesterday who had never heard of DHCR but lived here over 8 years.
It may or may not be blowing smoke, but it seems to be a good direction to go in. We are going to look into filing with DHCR next month.
I can't believe the long list of names in attendance. Any hope that maybe there is one politician who wants to help protect the people here as is the mission of the office they hold and not screw us over for a business deal is out the window.
Here are two more photos at the REBNY fundraiser and yes one is with our very own TA REBNY attorney.
Why hasn't anything been done about this crafty misuse of the intent of rent stabilization laws?
The answer to that one is easy. There was no "misuse." Those laws have been severely weakened and punched through with loopholes INTENDED TO FAVOR LANDLORDS. TenantsPac spells out clearly what needed to be done to reverse that back in November: http://www.tenantspac.org/endorsements
IT IS THE STATE LEGISLATURE, more specifically the State Senate, that's doing this shit. Thanks to the Urstadt Law, the city CANNOT plug up holes in the rent regs that the state created. And thanks to the crap results of the 2014 state elections, tenants rights people aren't even talking about repealing Urstadt any more, at this point they are concentrating on just getting the crappy rent regs we have left renewed this June. And repealing vacancy decontrol and rewriting pro landlord MCI law seems like a pipe dream too, esp now with Cuomo's current favorability rating among NYCers just over 70%. I'd say 70% approval for Cuomo is unbelievable, but then again we elected Bloomberg 3 times so I guess we enjoy getting shit on. So he's apparently not feeling ANY heat AT ALL from city renters. That better change before June.
About all the city has control over is how big rent increases are for rent regulated apartments, via the Rent Guidelines Board.
5:12 you are right and I think there is more to it.
The problem is the state legislature and beyond the state legislature.
Sheldon Silver positions things that are protective of tenants in a way they will not pass the State Senate and positions pro-landlord matters in a way they will pass.
The Assembly is as much at fault all of them because they all but one or two voted pro-landlord Silver as head again.
We know which side the governor is, RE.
As for the City, there would be little difference between Lhota and de Blasio on Real Estate issues. Both would develop a big public relations campaign to give an appearance of fair housing for the people while building sky high luxury condos with scraps and a poor door for the lower income class and no housing for the middle class.
STR is right - these are all the right questions on everything going on in PCV ST
"My question is: Why hasn't anything been done about this crafty misuse of the intent of rent stabilization laws? Where are the city's politicians to stop this type of leasing behavior? Why is it that we are looking at this, living through this, when such rapid turnover rentals should have been made illegal years ago?"
Seriously? It's the Assembly's fault for not sending legislation that landlords like to their butt boys and girls in the GOP controlled State Senate? What, don't don't want ANYBODY representing your interests as a tenant?
The GOP State Senate's M.O. is to run the clock out. They drag their feet until the last few minutes until rent regs expire and then make a move. That's how rent regs were basically killed during the Pataki admin in 1997. The State Senate finally put their rent reg bill on the floor with literally seconds to go before they expired completely. Vacancy decontrol and other loopholes were included in the package. The Assembly had to either take it or leave it on the spot. Of course, if the Assembly completely abandoned tenants and pushed out some State Senate-like pro landlord crap it'd of course sail through the Senate...
The difference between Llhota and De Blasio is that De Blasio wants to work with developers and Llhota, like Bloomberg, wants to work for developers. As a tenant subject to the mayor's RGB, I am much more comfortable with de Blasio than Llhota based on recent RGB numbers.
Comments have to await approval by the administrator of this blog to be published. Comments that insult another commentator, or that cross a line the administrator is not comfortable with, will not get approved.
More we're screwed photos
ReplyDeletehttp://ow.ly/i/8hewk
http://ow.ly/i/8hdXP
Depressing, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteThe REBNY God complex.
ReplyDeleteThe REBNY 2015 illustration Commercial Observer along with the Gala attendee photos says a lot about this upcoming year.
http://commercialobserver.com/2015/01/rebny-2015/
REBNY as God barreling through the heavens stretching out his finger to endow new REBNY head John Banks with the spark of life.
Michelangelo is rolling over in his grave.
"Perhaps the best-known image from the Sistine Ceiling today is Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam, in which God stretches out his finger to endow Adam with the spark of life. In this scene, the two focal characters are set in contrast. Adam is depicted as earthbound and slightly sluggish, while God has a commanding presence and appears to be barreling through the heavens surrounded by a cadre of angels."
http://www.learner.org/courses/globalart/work/78/
Then again REBNY does write all the laws of the land.
"God writes on us with his finger, in certain traditions of theology. In the Jewish tradition, that’s how he writes the tablets of the Ten Commandments for Moses—he sort of lasers them with his finger. The finger is the conduit through which God’s intelligence, his ideas and his morality seep into Man. And if you look at that painting very closely, you see that God isn’t actually looking at Adam, he’s looking at his own finger, as if to channel his own instructions and thoughts through that finger.”
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-measure-of-genius-michelangelos-sistine-chapel-at-500-123313873/#SHuZt3VdSPyxt3MY.99
Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv
Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter
ReplyDeleteIf they think voter turnout was low for Dems in 2014, wait until 2016 and the midterm elections in 2018. Not a chance any of them are getting a vote with the way they are using their offices. That is what you get for depressing the people.
It doesn't make me depressed. It makes me angry. But I am glad too it seems Governor Cuomo didn't go. Thanks STR for the Gala photos, last year too.
ReplyDeleteAlso thanks to the commentator for the City Council Speaker photo with Speyer and Spinola and the photo with Mayor De Blasio with Speyer which makes me ask why is de Blasio hugging as if this is more then professional, as if it is some kind of frat house eternal bond friendship? If he weren't the Mayor would these REBNY men let him in the party? Fair weather friends only friends when it is profitable.
ReplyDeleteFine lot those democrats we have running the show in NY.
ReplyDelete“6:40 p.m.: New York City Council Member Dan Garodnick tells CO why he’s at REBNY: “It’s my second [REBNY gala]. First of all, this is my district and there are a lot of active land use and real estate-related issues that we deal with on a regular basis. And this is a good place to catch up.”
ReplyDeleteA very "safe" political statement which says nothing. So depressing. Off topic, but last night, at least in Sty Town, was Bromageddon. The screaming and Woo Hooing, outside and inside, was off the charts. At one point last night, I called PS (around 11.45 PM) and couldn’t even tell them from what apartment the insanity was coming from, it was that bad.
Wow, inspiring STR blog reading this week. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the beauty and genius that is, or was, the Architecture Design of Stuyvesant Town before the vulgar glass / concrete amenities. A favorite story is of the Black Woman, Beverly Loraine Greene, believed to be the first African American woman architect in the United States. Greene earned Bachelor of Science degree in Architectural Engineering from University of Illinois in 1936. One year later she earned Master's of Science degree in City Planning and Housing from the same university.
December 28, 1942, at age 27, Greene was registered in State of Illinois as an architect. After completing the second degree, Greene returned to her hometown, initially worked for Chicago Housing Authority. Greene was one of the first African Americans in the agency. Despite her education and her official recognition as an architect, Greene found it difficult to obtain jobs in the profession.
She moved to New York City in 1945 to work on the planned Stuyvesant Town private housing project in lower Manhattan being built by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.
Given her past experiences, and the Company's prior announcement African Americans would not be allowed to live in Stuyvesant Town, Greene believed she would not be hired. She applied anyway and to her surprise she was the first architect employed on the project."
"Doors thrown open within two years of war’s end, Peter Cooper Village–Stuyvesant Town (first buildings completed in 1947) embodied ideals of victorious Allied Powers. A neighborhood unto itself, PCVST (known informally as Stuyvesant Town) was a modernist garden city that provided to thirty thousand middle-class New Yorkers an equal opportunity to enjoy the suburban idyll.
Dozens of thirteen-story red-brick towers march up and across from 14th to 23rd Street, First Avenue to Avenue C, flanking eighty acres of Parkland.
No longer would American cities subsist without sunlight and air and grass.
Democracy triumphant, a spirited egalitarianism swept up the nation’s urbanists, who eagerly propagated a new world order of efficient and healthful living."
http://www.blackpast.org/aah/greene-beverly-loraine-1915-1957#sthash.9opylKrk.dpuf
http://bwaf.org/built-by-women-peter-cooper-village-stuyvesant-town-beverly-loraine-greene/
"For all its egalitarian élan, Stuyvesant Town would not admit African American renters. Civil rights activists fought ten years for desegregation, achieving nominal success in early fifties upon gaining traction among white renters. Confronted with hypocrisy of Stuyvesant Town’s equal opportunity promotional campaign, these New Yorkers demanded a neighborhood akin to the country that had withstood fascism, a community free and open.
Stuyvesant Town still stands out, and so stands for, the enormous physical ramifications of urban renewal. Zipping down the FDR Drive, the road swings out in a great arc, into the East River. The motley, spindly Manhattan skyline vanishes—briefly, perceptibly—boxed out by a hulking phalanx of rusty X’s, conjoined and staggered.
Among the earliest recipients of municipal aid, Stuyvesant Town warned of the human costs of mass housing construction. PCVST dislodged three thousand families; in all, New York renewal would evict one hundred thousand individuals from their homes. The victims, a disproportionate fraction of whom were African American, earned slum clearance the ugly moniker of “Negro removal.”
But in 1952, the civil rights victory at Stuyvesant Town quietly sustained the promise of the postwar period, for a time."
With it's history of fighting for what is right, Stuyvesant Town is a community and property worth fighting to preserve.
@ January 16, 2015 at 9:52 PM
ReplyDeleteGood thinking. NY will turn into a wonderland for you and me with the GOP running the place. They're not in with Wall Street and big real estate. Not at all.
Oh this is bad.
ReplyDeleteMoney buys access. Until that changes or shifts significantly, deBlasio and every other politician will more likely be photographed shaking their hands than shaking yours.
ReplyDeleteTo 9.52 PM and 7.25 AM. Full disclosure, I held my nose and voted for de Blasio and Cuomo during the general election. I voted for Thompson and Teachout during the primary. I assume you all voted in the past for Pataki, then Bloomberg*, then Lhota for the last election. Pataki, the Republican led NYS Senate, and Bloomberg are responsible for around 80% of the horror that the middle class endures here. Peter Vallone and Anthony Weiner fill out the rest of that RE industry troll card. You do realize that you currently live in a heavily NYS/NYC regulated, socialist based, housing complex. Your party, The Republican Party, does not believe in ANY NYC residential housing regulations. Period. So for the next election, what Republican candidate will you vote for?
ReplyDelete*So called Independent was a major Republican, he donated millions to the NYS Republican Party campaign.
Not that I am a fan of the GOP, but the alternative has been just as bad IF NOT WORSE. Seriously????
ReplyDeleteNo sleep last night. The student parties (3 live in a one br, 45 show up for a weekly Friday night party). woohoo.
ReplyDeleteLux living my ass. Go back to campus you douches.
O so our precious Democratic NY party is not helping out the middle class?
ReplyDeleteSo surprised!
Think I see agitated goat in background of photo.
ReplyDelete-Lo R.
Call 311 and report it. The report goes to the 13th precinct and the city record.
ReplyDeleteNot only the student parties but peter cooper couple here with young children running jumping on bare floors no carpets
ReplyDeleteTons of playgrounds people - let's take the kiddies out and ask them to stop running and jumping on bare floors. Other people live underneath us - REMEMBER other people --- other people ---
Anony 6.37 PM. In addition to my PS calls, I also 311 internet report all my noise complaints as well.
ReplyDeleteAnony 7.06 PM. You are so correct, I am in Sty Town, and I have same issue here as well. I am surrounded by dorm apartments and one clueless single mother apartment. There is ZERO 80% carpet enforcement by Ms. D. HaberSHAM! But I will continue to call PS, over and over, make my 311 entries, etc. Management is counting on us not to respond.
ReplyDeletePlease remove these photos, STR. My stomach can't take any more. I am all out of Peptobismal and am puking up my guts just clicking onto your blog and seeing these hideous, satanic cretins giving us their evil, perverted grins. Madam Toussaide's Chamber of Horrors doesn't have any more evil and satanic images than these.
ReplyDelete2:21 pm: Don't ASSUME anything. I never voted for Pataki, Bloomberg or Lhota. I did vote for Teachout and Wu and wrote in their names in the last election. I would choose not to vote at all rather than vote for a republican because I believe that the Repubs are regressive, divisive, racist and utter filth. That also goes for DINOS.
ReplyDeleteSeems there are a few politicians who did not attend who have in the past, and maybe are beginning to realize attendance at this anti-tenant REBNY fundraiser is a betrayal of Public Trust. For the ones who attended they are showing their real colors, even the ones who gave odd replies to the reporter on why they are attending this anti-tenant group's party. Great articles STR - thanks for keeping us in the loop. Let's hope more politicians realize attending anti-tenant parties = anti-constituent and the remaining are slapped with ethics penalties and or booted from Public Office. Still remaining problem, what are we going to do about the anti-tenant / pro-owner REBNY lawyer the PCVST "Tenant" Association hired so we can get better, pro-tenant representation that will help keep us in our homes, help with the Quality of Life issues, help get an audit and our money back on the renovation overcharges, and fix the mci charges? Didn't someone comment we have a right to see the renovation charges and increase calculations on our apartments? Couldn't we get a pro-tenant lawyer to demand some of these things?
ReplyDelete11.14 PM, 2.21 PM here. Thanks.
ReplyDelete4.26 AM. You have made good points but I am still waiting to see a viable TA alternative created here, especially by the usual suspect posters who equivocate the TA with CWC(?). There are many grunt TA volunteers (I’m one of them) who work on the QOL issues here and who think the conversion scheme is pie in the sky but what’s the alternative organization/game plan that will be created? Waiting. That was tried and failed some time ago due to lack of interest. Anyone who thinks that the tenants here, the majority clueless and docile (especially long term), on an individual basis, can make a difference on the big issues is blowing smoke. Don’t get me wrong, we all need to file DHCR overcharges, file with the DOB when needed, call PS, file 311’s, contribute to and volunteer for the effective tenant pro NYS RS PACS, etc. If the fix is truly in, Fortress buys and the dormfication/commercialization/destruction continues as the elderly die and the middle age moves away in frustration, then, like the Philippines in 1941/1942 WW II, we are just fighting a read guard action that will result in defeat, we are the “Battling Bastards” of PCVST.
And nobody gives a damn!
January 16, 2015 at 9:52 PM
ReplyDeleteGood thinking! After all, the GOP in NY absolutely takes no $$$ from Wall Street and the RE industry and is renowned here in NYC for all that they have done to strengthen and protect rent regulations and are absolutely not responsible for the MCI loopholes and vacancy decontrol and all those other things that resulted in $5000+ a month 2 bedroom STPCV apartments --- that's the responsibility of the Dems! And of course those GOP Mayor Bloomberg era 9.5% rent increases for a 2 year lease never happened!
January 17, 2015 at 7:25 AM and
January 17, 2015 at 4:37 PM and
January 17, 2015 at 3:30 PM
shrewd! And here I thought the GOP has had the State Senate majority for some 50 years and is world famous for loving NYC tenants and the rent regulations that protect them and is not at all responsible --- Pataki either --- for absolutely screwing NY tenants and their stupid rent regulations in the hoo hoo! Also. Tenant activists are thrilled that the GOP took the majority of the Senate again after the NYC RE industry poured money into their campaigns!
At least Republicans do what they say.
ReplyDelete311 noise complaint is on line now? Where, please post? I'm a bit internet slow here.
ReplyDelete"At least Republicans do what they say.
ReplyDeleteYes, they fuck us NYS RS tenants over. Read "What's the Matter with Kansas?" by Thomas Frank.
Anony 3.46 PM, here's the link:
https://www1.nyc.gov/apps/311universalintake/form.htm?serviceName=NYPD+Noise+Neighbor
Wow. Good week of posts. Grateful to STR and commentators these past years. I love the passion in this community. What a year, a few years.
ReplyDeleteA Review to date....
PART 1
This community is passionate and is being betrayed. Business interests are taking over any interests of the people.
We need to stop wasting time answering / asking calls for new TA. All allies named in Dan's letter will block a new and real Tenant's Association from forming.
Dan made that threat clear in his letter. He will stop at nothing for his agenda, "nobody is going to shut us out of this process."
He did not say he will stop at nothing to protect tenants eg fraudulent rent charges we pay every month, bogus mci charges, thousands of dorms, construction of open space, etc that he enabled since 2008.
It is not a threat to other buyers thinking of purchasing PCVST.
Clear threat is to tenants who are revealing financial and quality of life assaults on people and property. Reports that get in Dan's way of his business interests, the process getting his seat at the table.
Because reporting overcharges, unsafe conditions, and atrocities here in PCVST could impact Dan's "seat at the table" we are supposed to pay fraudulent rent overcharges every month, fraudulent mci charges, stripped of quality of life every day and night for years.
Clear business goal - nothing will get in his way of a seat at the table - not an overcharged tenant struggling to pay rent, arboricide, construction, deteriorating conditions, etc. Evident the mass evictions and over-development. Everyone who reported anything to Dan now knows why their council person ignored them.
They double cross and cross lines to block and stop anyone in their way of a seat at the table.
For years we challenged the student population, construction, rent overcharges, and it is met with a brick wall of lip-service-and-no-action from Dan, the TA, lawmakers. Remember this battle of 2012?
http://stuytownreport.blogspot.com/2012_03_01_archive.html
STR:
"My question is: Why hasn't anything been done about this crafty misuse of the intent of rent stabilization laws? Where are the city's politicians to stop this type of leasing behavior? Why is it that we are looking at this, living through this, when such rapid turnover rentals should have been made illegal years ago?"
In 2015 Lucas Chu's is same scheme. Again lip service from ta board AFTER STR revealed the scheme and tenants protested on T&V. Kyle Freedman and Lucas Chu etc scams are the same but Chu's somewhat better at hiding affiliations of those in the scam.
To repeat STR's call, where are the lawmakers protecting tenants?
They are very busy passing laws in record time for REBNY!
to be continued
saying "public access" provides loopholes and benefits to owners including exemptions on property taxes.
ReplyDeleteclosing the gates has nothing to do with safety, don't kid yourselves, these guys care nothing about the tenants.
it has to do with how much money they can take from the tenants and the property. all they care about is upping their take.
January 18, 2015 at 3:25 PM
ReplyDeleteThat's not saying much of anything when it comes to tenants and rental housing issues. If the GOP had their way, tenants would have no rights at all.
When it comes to NY politics, Wall Street and Real Estate try to influence Democrats, but they outright own the GOP. That's why the RE industry spent so much money on upstate GOP candidates this past election: to maintain a GOP majority in the State Senate. And they got the results they wanted. In addition, real estate has also bought a few Democrats-in-name-only in safe Democratic districts (see Pedro Espada, and, currently, Jeff Klein's Independent Democrats) to vote with the GOP against tenants on rent regulation and affordable housing issues. Democrats in the Assembly can pass all the pro-tenant bills in the world, but unless the GOP majority in the State Senate passes the same bills too, there's nothing for the Governor to sign into law.
If we had an actual Democrat in Gov Cuomo, he might have been able to force a more pro-tenant agenda on the majority GOP in the State Senate. Now, after the crappy results in the last election, Assembly Dems and Cuomo will have to horse trade just to get rent regulations renewed this coming June. Getting them strengthened looks like a real longshot.
Every politician attending completely lost my trust.
ReplyDeleteWe the people cannot trust our NY government.
8:18 some dems fuck us to. They just close their eyes and pretend they aren't while they screw away.
ReplyDelete10:41 am I agree with you completely
ReplyDelete"Don’t get me wrong, we all need to file DHCR overcharges, file with the DOB when needed, call PS, file 311’s, contribute to and volunteer for the effective tenant pro NYS RS PACS, etc"
And if as you say...
"Anyone who thinks that the tenants here, the majority clueless and docile (especially long term)"
...it is because the TA Board isn't training, teaching providing links and materials on file DHCR overcharges, file with the DOB when needed, call PS, file 311’s, contribute to and volunteer for the effective tenant pro NYS RS PACS, etc. We had to learn it on our own and just talked to a neighbor yesterday who had never heard of DHCR but lived here over 8 years.
It may or may not be blowing smoke, but it seems to be a good direction to go in. We are going to look into filing with DHCR next month.
From bad to worse
ReplyDeleteI can't believe the long list of names in attendance. Any hope that maybe there is one politician who wants to help protect the people here as is the mission of the office they hold and not screw us over for a business deal is out the window.
Here are two more photos at the REBNY fundraiser and yes one is with our very own TA REBNY attorney.
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/gallery/20150116/ARTS/116009998/6
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/gallery/20150116/ARTS/116009998/8
On this day as we honor one of the greatest Activists, a reminder of his words
ReplyDelete"Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'" ~Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Why hasn't anything been done about this crafty misuse of the intent of rent stabilization laws?
ReplyDeleteThe answer to that one is easy. There was no "misuse." Those laws have been severely weakened and punched through with loopholes INTENDED TO FAVOR LANDLORDS. TenantsPac spells out clearly what needed to be done to reverse that back in November:
http://www.tenantspac.org/endorsements
IT IS THE STATE LEGISLATURE, more specifically the State Senate, that's doing this shit. Thanks to the Urstadt Law, the city CANNOT plug up holes in the rent regs that the state created. And thanks to the crap results of the 2014 state elections, tenants rights people aren't even talking about repealing Urstadt any more, at this point they are concentrating on just getting the crappy rent regs we have left renewed this June. And repealing vacancy decontrol and rewriting pro landlord MCI law seems like a pipe dream too, esp now with Cuomo's current favorability rating among NYCers just over 70%. I'd say 70% approval for Cuomo is unbelievable, but then again we elected Bloomberg 3 times so I guess we enjoy getting shit on. So he's apparently not feeling ANY heat AT ALL from city renters. That better change before June.
About all the city has control over is how big rent increases are for rent regulated apartments, via the Rent Guidelines Board.
5:12 you are right and I think there is more to it.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is the state legislature and beyond the state legislature.
Sheldon Silver positions things that are protective of tenants in a way they will not pass the State Senate and positions pro-landlord matters in a way they will pass.
The Assembly is as much at fault all of them because they all but one or two voted pro-landlord Silver as head again.
We know which side the governor is, RE.
As for the City, there would be little difference between Lhota and de Blasio on Real Estate issues. Both would develop a big public relations campaign to give an appearance of fair housing for the people while building sky high luxury condos with scraps and a poor door for the lower income class and no housing for the middle class.
STR is right - these are all the right questions on everything going on in PCV ST
"My question is: Why hasn't anything been done about this crafty misuse of the intent of rent stabilization laws? Where are the city's politicians to stop this type of leasing behavior? Why is it that we are looking at this, living through this, when such rapid turnover rentals should have been made illegal years ago?"
January 20, 2015 at 5:45 AM
ReplyDeleteSeriously? It's the Assembly's fault for not sending legislation that landlords like to their butt boys and girls in the GOP controlled State Senate? What, don't don't want ANYBODY representing your interests as a tenant?
The GOP State Senate's M.O. is to run the clock out. They drag their feet until the last few minutes until rent regs expire and then make a move. That's how rent regs were basically killed during the Pataki admin in 1997. The State Senate finally put their rent reg bill on the floor with literally seconds to go before they expired completely. Vacancy decontrol and other loopholes were included in the package. The Assembly had to either take it or leave it on the spot. Of course, if the Assembly completely abandoned tenants and pushed out some State Senate-like pro landlord crap it'd of course sail through the Senate...
The difference between Llhota and De Blasio is that De Blasio wants to work with developers and Llhota, like Bloomberg, wants to work for developers. As a tenant subject to the mayor's RGB, I am much more comfortable with de Blasio than Llhota based on recent RGB numbers.
I just can't believe this.
ReplyDelete