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.
Monday, December 24, 2018
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
Return with us to the thrilling days of yesteryear....
My bath tub has backed up with brown-brackish water. And when I run the faucets in the bathroom the water is the same discolored appearance. With a weird odor. I've heard other tenants have had the same issue. What to do? I've called Resident Services and they tell me to just run the water and it will go away. I've tried but the problem keeps returning. I called my friend who is a licensed plumber. I've called the Tenants Association hotline. I've even called Susan Steinberg, President of the Tenants Association. They all came up with the simple solution. How could I have not thought of it myself. JUST CALL RICK!
They had a real waiting list then and didn't have to beg, plead and bribe and cruise around in a tacky advertising van to get tenants. They also had stipulations as to what rules tenants had to obey and they enforced those rules. Hard to believe it's the same place.
I wonder what the heating system was like back then? The mongrels running this dump today make sure we don't get a puff of heat that brings the indoor temperature over the legal minimum. They do that by constantly turning the heat off for extended periods and then turning it on for a short period. Bastards.
In one post, the TA lawyer was named in response to an entreaty for a housing lawyer to help get us heat. The TA SHOULD BE TAKING CARE OF THIS. The fact that it is not is despicable.
I've tried to contact Tim Collins, the TA lawyer, recommended on this blog.
Twice, today. First time: receptionist, who suggested I call when he returns, in "half an hour."
I did so, and no one at his firm was there. Only voicemail.
Any bets on (1) IF he phones me back; (2) WHAT he says about the no-heat/little heat situation here???
P.S.: I'll make my own bet: all of that verbiage about Ravitch, et al. is most likely TRUE. I know, I know: it is nearly impossible to believe (and understand) why people behave in such destructive ways. Sad, but the norm.
Has a nuclear weapon gone off in PigStuyTown? No, it's just the radiator pipes clanging. BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG...so soothing. Reminds me of the tenement I grew up in many moons ago. Except my parents paid I think $62 per month rent..and that was high...lol! Merry Christmas, Mr. STR!
Merry Christmas all! Thank you STR for your work. Thru your dedication, we may come thru this dark time in Stuy Town history. Thank you for calling attention to all the owner transgressions and giving us a place to voice our displeasure.
Thank you STR for giving us a place to vent but I don’t see us getting through these dark days with this management without a real TA or actual actions.
Stand Up and Fight said... I've tried to contact Tim Collins, the TA lawyer, recommended on this blog.
Twice, today. First time: receptionist, who suggested I call when he returns, in "half an hour."
I did so, and no one at his firm was there. Only voicemail.
Any bets on (1) IF he phones me back; (2) WHAT he says about the no-heat/little heat situation here???
First of all, you called him the DAY BEFORE CHRISTMAS, a day when many businesses close early, which his firm very well may have. Or maybe they were just very busy trying to get things done or meet a hard deadline before the end of the day and needed to let calls go to voicemail at some point. Secondly, why are you doubting that he will call you back? Returning potential clients’ phone calls is how his firm gets new business. Thirdly, why are pre-judging what he might have to say about the heat situation here, instead of waiting to hear what he has to say? Even if he doesn’t end up teling you what you want to hear, at least give the man a chance.
What I don’t get is why if he is the TA lawyer he isn’t acting already for them on our behalf. Isn’t that what a TA lawyer is supposed to do. I agree with Stand up and Fight that he will not act. The TA took apartments of people without heat over a month ago and did nothing with it.
I most definitely am giving Mr. Collins a chance; I believe that once in a while, someone does the right thing.
His firm's representative, or receptionist, was quite clear about when the gentleman would return. She most assuredly mentioned nothing about the firm's "closing early." I am well aware of business practices in this nation, and had no reason to believe that he was not returning to the office at the time specified.
As for all of my doubts, well . . . I am much bewildered that you do not understand the many reasons doubts feature in this venture.
I fervently wish that the in-person meeting with Keith Powers, including two other Stuyvesant Town residents, and the many calls to his office did not end in my knowledge of betrayal and lies and near certain corruption. Ditto for my conversations with Harvey Epstein's staff, and the truly revelatory conversation among my husband, Harvey and myself.
Even more powerfully do I long to report that the communications with some of the figureheads of "Stuytown" or whatever the heck brand they've come up with . . . again . . . many in number, and some of them pleasant and even delightful . . . resulted in ANY positive result.
Alas and alack - no luck.
So, 2:32 PM Anonymous - I trust that you will have some understanding and even sympathy regarding my doubts.
The TA’s lawyer probably didn’t act because he wasn’t asked to act by the TA.
Stand Up and Fight, you have to be able to PROVE a case AND Blackstone actually has to be BREAKING THE LAW. They have, generally, been giving more heat than what the law calls for. I do think that the City’s heat requirements are too low, but they are what they are.
It will be interesting to hear what Tim Collins has to say once you speak with him. Please let us know.
HEY DOWNSTAIRS NEIGHBOR, COULD YOU PLEASE LOWER YOUR RADIO WHEN EVERYONE AROUND IS TRYING TO SLEEP? YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER! YOU ARE NOT A KID FOR GOD'S SAKES!
I doubt that Blackstone is giving more heat than required. Befor I left on a short Christmas holiday I was getting heat maybe for five or six hours. A once comfortable apartment had become chilly. It was if they suddenly cut the heat.
"Maybe the TA should ask him to act. We aren’t getting consistent heat. They have cut it down."
You bet they have cut it down. I don't know anybody else in the City who has this kind of problem with heat. I don't know anybody who lives in NYCHA, but I think that only NYCHA tenants are worse off. Blackstone is running PCVST the same way DeBlasio runs NYCHA. It is filthy, cold and noisy. Hayduk and his crew should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. They are not fit to run an apartment complex. Hayduk and his phoney smile makes me want to vomit.
They go by the book when they only have to give you 68 degrees in the evening. They got it down to a science. Glad I'm not paying $4500/month around here. SUCKERS!!!
Returned from vacation to same cold apartment. They are giving the bare legal minimum. Will not have the engineer come again. Last time they gave me heat right before he came up. Next step is recording the temps and calling 311. Also going in to complain. They told me this crap about sealing my windows and ac. Pure drivel as my apartment was warm all last winter and up until two weeks ago. Got a plea for dues from the TA today. They get crap until they deal with this heat issue.
When you speak with Tim Collins, you should mention that former TA President John Marsh RECENTLY called the heating system a FAILURE on the TA’s FB page. Tim and John know each other well, so maybe Tim talking with John about the problem would be helpful for Tim.
8:54. They are not giving more than the minimum limit. They were up until a few weeks ago in my apartment but not anymore. And this is something the TA should take on automatically. They read what is going on with the heat here on their blog.
When there is a deadly fire caused by a space heater, or a child or senior dies from pneumonia or flu caused by lack of heat, then maybe these bloodsucking, parasitical scumbags will be held accountable. Hayduk, go back to where you came from because you are not fit for the job you currently hold. You are letting people get sick and some may die because of your parsimonious approach to how much (or little) comfort you permit them to have in their homes. I hope you don't get future employment in the apartment managerial industry because your reputation will follow you.
As I wrote recently, I was warned last spring by a knowledgeable employee that Blackstone had planned to decrease our heat.
All of the idiotic, expensive-to-produce written garbage we read last year about their marvelous heating system was a harbinger of things to come. We've seen this tactic before: they begin a new version of harassment slowly, producing copious garbage in the run-up - garbage verbiage in signs, enclosed in rent checks, in their e-mails. Their "entertainment" invasion and attack of the spring/summer/fall was a splendid example.
Until last Monday, December 17, 2018, I was one of the tenants with usually too much heat. All of the sudden, on Monday, the 17th there was little heat, and usually no heat all day and all night. This has continued until today, as I write.
I read many, and most telling, larger numbers of complaints here and in the TA Facebook page.
It is my not at all humble opinion that yes, this is DELIBERATE. I agree with all of you who think this is the case.
NO, TIM COLLINS DID NOT RETURN MY CALL. YES, IT IS HIS JOB TO DEFEND US AGAINST THIS PREDATION WITHOUT ANY INDIVIDUAL TENANT OR TENANTS ASKING HIM TO DO SO.
Please, please, please: don't write nasty comments here to other people. It's been my understanding that ALL of the tenants here are treated badly, regardless of what they pay.
As with all tyrants, dictators and their ilk: DIVIDE AND CONQUER is a classic and highly effective tactic. Please don't help them hurt us further.
According to her LinkedIn Resume she worked as a Blackstone Private investigator with State and Federal law enforcement building criminal cases against StuyTown tenants, first working at a law firm then working directly for StuyTown once Blackstone took over in 2016.
According to her LinkedIn Resume she with StuyTown Property caught over 100 illegal Airbnb hoteliers
After personally viewing surveillance footage she has successful criminal convictions of StuyTown tenants
When were these trials?
Why is there no coverage anywhere in the press on what is a big headline if it is true 100 AIRBNB StuyTown Hotels Criminally Prosecuted by State and Federal Authorities
A State and Federal takedown of 100 illegal hotels and not one headline during years of big angry headlines by City, State and Federal authorities and AIRBNB
NONE OF THIS IS REPORTED ANYWHERE IN THE NEWS SO WHAT DID SHE REALLY SPEND HER TIME DOING? NOWHERE ARE THESE 100 AIRBNB CAUGHT CASES REPORTED OR RECORDED IN CITY RECORDS
During the same time period StuyTown experiences increase in crimes unnoticed as 10 Minute Rape of Young Woman in Vestibule Half dozen suicides Rape on 14th Street Hockey Stick Attack and Robbery Multiple assaults and robberies
HERE IS HER LINKEDIN PAGE SHE IS ONE OF THE INVESTIGATORS BLACKSTONE HIRED TO SPY ON STUYTOWN TENANTS THAT CLAIMS OVER 100 HOTELS CAUGHT AND CLAIMS HER WORK WITH STATE AND FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT LED TO SUCCESSFUL CONVICTIONS
WHERE ARE THE STUYTOWN RECORDS ON THE NEW YORK STATE AND FEDERAL "SUCCESSFUL CRIMINAL CONVICTIONS" OF STUYTOWN RESIDENTS BROUGHT ON BY OTHER STUYTOWN RESIDENTS THAT THE PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR KEPT INFORMED ON THEIR CASES?
ANYONE OUT THERE KNOW THEY ARE ONE OF THE TENANTS TARGETED BY THE BLACKSTONE PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR THAT WAS CRIMINALLY PROSECUTED OR WAS NOT CRIMINALLY PROSECUTED LIKELY HAS A HELLUVA HARASSMENT CASE AGAINST BLACKSTONE, THE PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR, THE LAW FIRM, THE TENANTS WHO MADE THE COMPLAINTS - IF INDEED THERE ARE NO CRIMINAL CONVICTIONS AS THE PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR CLAIMS ON HER LINKED IN PAGE.
Why globally publish a false LinkedIn page?
https://www.linkedin.com/in/karenzeilingold
Karen Zeilingold Experienced Criminal Investigator | Master's in Forensic Psychology Seattle, Washington Security and Investigations
Previous StuyTown, Sirotkin Varacalli & Hamra, LLP, John Jay College (CUNY)
Education City University of New York-John Jay College of Criminal Justice Investigator StuyTown February 2016 – September 2018 • 2 years 8 months
Greater New York City Area StuyTown is an 80-acre private property in Manhattan that has its own public safety force with sworn peace officers ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- • Conduct formal investigations on community and criminal matters including larceny, assault, narcotics distribution, criminal mischief and domestic abuse/violence.
• Lead teams to track down illegal hoteliers using platforms like Airbnb and Facebook, and support special sting operations to catch perpetrators, resulting in over 100 illegal hoteliers caught.
• Generate and update incident reports for criminal and property incidents; communicate with tenants and give updates on status of their case, so they feel supported and informed.
• Work directly with both state law enforcement and federal agencies on criminal cases that involve tenants of the property; analyze video surveillance of specific incidents and compile all related materials to hand over to them, resulting in successful criminal convictions.
A law firm dedicated to providing services related to litigation, criminal defense, intellectual property and corporate affairs
Sirotkin Varacalli & Hamra, LLP
• Conducted comprehensive background checks on our clients and plaintiffs through Facebook, Instagram and several professional background check services to provide the lawyers preliminary admissible materials.
• Led all legal research and evidence analysis, like reviewing video surveillance footage, photographs, and other discovery materials; summarized findings in investigative memorandum which were used as submissions in trials.
• Directed interviews of prospective witnesses and other prospective parties, and paired them with respective evidence, to assemble a complete factual picture prior to going to trial.
Graduate Research Assistant (Investigative Psychology Research Unit) John Jay College (CUNY) September 2014 – October 2015 1 year 2 months John Jay College of Criminal Justice Director: C. Gabrielle Salfati, PhD.
After reading this about Blackstone Private Investigators spying on StuyTown tenants with City and State Law Enforcement does anyone think Blackstone is any different then Tishman Speyer BlackRock hiring private investigators to spy on us?
Blackstone Steve Schwarzman is worse, the secrecy, with the New York State Government and Federal Government spying on StuyTown tenants claiming 100 criminal prosecutions done in secrecy means the State Government and Federal Government are working for Blackstone.
Blackstone Steve Schwarzman is our landlord and is the Leadership of our Governing Bodies and controllers of our Rights, Quality of Life, Heat, Safety, ... oh and Rights not to be spied on by anyone, including the creepy landlord.
Sure the lack of heat sucks. So does the spying by neighbors on neighbors with private investigators hired by Blackstone, State law enforcement and federal law enforcement.
Blackstone, BlackRock, Ivanhoe Cambridge and Tishman Speyer tried to repeat the Gas House District Cleansing history of yesteryear using the excuse of a neighborhood blighted with endemic crime by predatory criminals so Blackstone, BlackRock, Ivanhoe Cambridge and Tishman Speyer and all they tirelessly worked with, set out to prosecute StuyTown tenants as predatory criminals gaming the system
Per Stuyvesant Town Peter Cooper Village Wikipedia Page
"the site of the complex had become known as the "Gashouse District" because of the many tanks that dominated the streetscapes.[7] The tanks, which sometimes leaked, made the area undesirable to live in, as did the Gas House Gang and other predators who operated in the area."
"Before the construction of Stuyvesant Town, the neighborhood contained 18 city blocks, with public schools, churches, factories, private homes, apartments, small businesses and even relatively new modern-style apartment buildings. In all, 600 buildings, containing 3,100 families, 500 stores and small factories, three churches, three schools, and two theaters, were razed. As would be repeated in later urban renewal projects, some 11,000 persons were forced to move from the neighborhood. In 1945, The New York Times called the move from the site "the greatest and most significant mass movement of families in New York's history."
Christmas day. Zero heat. Shameful. Stephen Schwartzman, the head of Blackstone, is a predatory ghoul, living the high life off of the suffering of others. I hope his karma comes back one day to get him good.
I agree that there has been a cut in heat over the past two weeks. My apartment was also overheated until that time. The heat goes on for a couple of hours a few times a day and gradually the apartment cools again..This is purposeful.
Most days a few short spurts of heat, then a cold apartment. This is deliberate and they are telling the engineers to come up while we have heat from 8 to 10 and take readings then. Then they tell them to get our acs covered and window latches tight. They cannot bullshit me because I had heat just two weeks ago, window issues and all.
The City of NY is renting apartments from Blackstone to house families "in need." These folks clearly are getting significant subsidies from the City. Blackstone makes out like a bandit. Minimal vacancy rate. Apartments taken out of rent-stabilization. Only four or five apartments per building are rented to City subsidized tenants so it remains under radar. I DEFY Tenants Association to state that I am wrong. I have this info directly from someone in Blackstone Office.
Which Feds are they talking about? SDNY Southern District New York? EDNY Eastern District of New York? Director Diego Rodriguez?
By what jurisdiction are the Feds running ops in StuyTown?
The mean person who accused someone of being off their meds just got caught in a big, fat, offensive, condescending lie. Must be because they know they are getting exposed for their big, fat, offensive, condescending true selves.
Maybe the private investigator can explain herself, her StuyTown Hotel 100 criminal cases, her working with full force of State and Federal authorities against middle class tenants, her surveillance techniques she used on StuyTown and why the Tenant Association never told any of us about this.
The feds are supposed to protect us from the likes of Blackstone!
The feds are not supposed to attack us for Blackstone.
what happened to the HEAT in Stuy Town? my place in like an icebox minimal if any heat lots of my neighbors complain about freezing conditions others say their apartments are like an oven kindly explain thank you
The Private Investigator's Linkedin Resume gives undeniable reasons the poster of the below stupid, mean comment should be eating their condescending and completely incorrect words. Thank goodness we are not all stooping to slander of "glue-sniffing" and "off their meds" offensive insults because people like that are usually proven wrong and usually resorting to character attacks because the facts go against them.
The community could use less of the character attacking cover ups like the below and more of the truth tellers like the private investigator expose.
Truth is, in the interests of $Blackstone Condo Conversion$, the State Police and Feds with bad StuyTown tenants did really bad things to harm some really good tenants.
SHUT UP AND EAT YOUR WORDS December 24, 2018 at 4:30 PM
Anonymous said... "Stuyvesant Town Peter Cooper Village ground was sup[posed to break 2013 - 2016 but Garodnick, TA Board, Bloomberg failed to do that and Garodnick, TA Board with Deblasio failed their many attempts after that to fulfill Rob Speyers accusations of tenants gaming the system and Garodnick's famous litigation set up to blame the offending tenant gaming the system for the abuse from Rob Speyer of all the tenants. This NY Times article so carefully worded to protect and defend Rob Speyer's cleansing the residency and blaming one bad apple tenant for causing all of the harm to the entire community."
Give dates please, so that we can look this up in the NYT and see that you aren't doing some glue-sniffing. STR, why do you allow this kind of thing to be published on your blog? It sounds like somebody is off their meds.
I have known this for a long time. Subsidized next door neighbors have been in 3500 plus apartment three years already while others have moved after a year. Part of a church group, no jobs, visited by public assistance.
I’d be curious to hear what the TA has to say about this woman, and her LinkedIn claims as an employee of the current management company of this property. I know two tenants on my floor who do AirBnB a few times a year, and management has not done a thing about them, so I doubt this woman’s claims to be true (kind of like Rick’s 8,000 dog lanyard stop number).
I’m not going to turn these people in, because that is not my job, it’s management’s.
If they have someone rooting out AirbnBs and criminals, what is wrong with that? If you are not using your apartment as an AirbnB or dealing drugs, you have nothing to fear.
I don't believe that they are doing any such thing though, because this place is full of illegal hotels and I wouldn't be surprised if there was drug activity, too. Remember Sulfuric Acid Boy? His apartment was probably a meth factory and they didn't know (or maybe care) what he and his pals were up to. This is not your old Mother Met Stuy anymore; this is an overpriced mixed-use (very mixed) slum with all kinds of shit going down and law enforcement is either banned or law enforcement gives Management a pass. We have NO protection here and plenty that we need protection from.
"They go by the book when they only have to give you 68 degrees in the evening. They got it down to a science. Glad I'm not paying $4500/month around here. SUCKERS!!!"
The people paying "$4500/month" here are probably transient students crammed into apartments. They will leave this open sewer in a year or two and hopefully regain some self respect. It's people like us who really are the suckers because we stay due to our "great deal" as real R/S tenants. Don't be so smug. Have some appropriate shame for spending your life in this dump: at any price.
STR, why do you allow these long-winded, off-the-wall conspiracy-theory posts? They have no back-up; they don't include any links to the supposed NYT articles or anything else for that matter. They seem to have been written by someone (or may more than one) nutter who has a wild imagination. They are in no way helpful with regard to the current problems we are facing from the Black$tone ghouls and we all are aware that Speyer was a dirtbag and a total crook. He no doubt had a lot of help from Bloomberg and other billionaire crooks, but that is history and we are now being slowly killed by a new batch of satanic billionaire crooks. Thank you.
"We need to worry about the heat, not this other crap right now."
Agreed. We need to get the word out to the press and prospective renters that the Blackhole Policy is absolutely minimal heat. They are despicable poor excuses for human beings.
I don't care. Every year I put on my oven when its cold, and I'm nice and toasty. Later for that. And I have control over that. In the Summmer, cold air blasts at 60 degrees. And I also have control over that. I DON'T CARE!!!!
I walk into my office. The heat is on. Restaurants are comfortable. I went into Target today and it was toasty. My apartment was comfortable for one or two hours today when heat was on. Now it is going off and I will be cold again. This is despicable.
The long winded comments are about the cause of the lack of quality of life problems. Recall in 2016 the feds, SDNY subpoenaed the DHCR records. What happened to that investigation?
Our quality of life stinks because the officials are not doing their jobs. But the city council just passed of introduced laws for better tenant protections including from DOB, DHCR, etc.
It seems the long winded comments are saying that 1) tenants are on their own 2) city, state and feds were working with TA and management against tenants 3) who is left to care about our heat? 4) who is left to care about us?
The point is the TA is a lost cause. They do nothing for us and have not for years.
For heat problems, do we call 311? Have we done that every day there is not heat? Why not?
Why aren't we demanding the system do its job and work for us, public service?
Dear Senator Hoylman
You want my vote - then I want heat now. No heat - No vote. Ever again.
4:55 pm, I agree. I will vote anybody going AGAINST current incumbents because they do NOTHING for us. I am sick of huddling in a cold apartment because we are deliberately being brought down to the level of a tenement slum. The TA doesn't care and our elected representatives don't care. Blackstone is denying us heat in an effort to save a few pennies even though we have to use ovens and space heaters to keep warm. There is bound to be Illness and, probably, death as a result of this. This is calculated misery for tenants. We are only one step up from the unfortunate people who live in Slumlord De Blasio's NYCHA apartments.
I would like to wish Rick Hayduk and his family a happy and healthy new year. I would like to, but I cannot because he is the one implementing this misery. Vile, heartless man. When the first senior or baby dies as the result of this deprivation of heat I trust you will be very happy and declare "mission accomplished" as you send in the death team.
It's people like us who really are the suckers because we stay due to our "great deal" as real R/S tenants. Don't be so smug. Have some appropriate shame for spending your life in this dump: at any price.
Shame on us who pay lower rents and like whores we endure this. Now we heard our building - haNe - has bedbugs and a real live working brothel.
6:18 pm - I think Mr Hayduk is probably home in Florida for the Holidays and missing all this controversy. I think he's very much a family man. I wonder if his apartment (here) is 68 degrees? Would be a shock to the system after Florida! Maybe he'll take pity on us!
The Tenants Association should truly hang their heads in shame. They do NOTHING for the tenants. They pander for dues like a trollop leaning against a light pole yet they provide NOTHING. Susan Steinberg and your crew...truly vile. DEVOID OF ETHICS. Instead of, "Hey, sailor, want to have a good time" we get JUST CALL RICK! PATHETIC.
There are a wide variety of illness, some life threatening, that are a result of lack of proper heat.
Sick building syndrome causes are frequently pinned down to flaws in the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. The WHO has classified the reported symptoms into broad categories, including: mucous membrane irritation (eye, nose, and throat irritation), neurotoxic effects (headaches, fatigue, and irritability), asthma and asthma-like symptoms (chest tightness and wheezing), skin dryness and irritation, gastrointestinal complaints and more.
*pneumonia *flu *injury or death due to fire or toxins emoted my space heaters
These issues are EXTREMELY DANGEROUS TO OUR CHILDREN AND ELDERLY. We all know that some person is monitoring this site for Stuy. WHY DONT YOU EARN YOUR MONEY AND HELP US SURVIVE THIS WINTER?!?
We are the suffering man while a few are reaping the rewards of less heat by lining their pockets. I bet the management has heat in the offices and their apt.
"It would not surprise me if people have already contracted pneumonia from lack of heat. It cannot be proven in the elderly."
I have had bronchial pneumonia and had to go stay with a relative because my apartment was so cold. When I told them at the hospital about the heat here, they said I should file a complaint with the Board of Health. I am a senior, but in very good health generally. This cold nasty place is extremely dangerous for seniors and the very young. And anybody with an impaired immune system, really. They always want to send someone up to your apartment to check the heat, like they are dealing with mentally defective people. I don't want one of their people in my apartment when I am sick. I don't know what viruses and bacterial he will bring in that might polish me off! Also, I could make the worker sick because I was highly infectious for a while.
This is deliberate, calculated mistreatment of tenants and if our so-called TA and politicians don't do something about it they should just go away and stay away.
When they send someone up about the heat , they send them after it turns on briefly so the readings will be legitimate. Then they blame the windows. Liars. Last night I had more heat than the previous night, so it shows that they can turn it up when they want to.
Anonymous said... STR, why do you allow these long-winded, off-the-wall conspiracy-theory posts? They have no back-up; they don't include any links to the supposed NYT articles or anything else for that matter. They seem to have been written by someone (or may more than one) nutter who has a wild imagination. They are in no way helpful with regard to the current problems we are facing from the Black$tone ghouls and we all are aware that Speyer was a dirtbag and a total crook. He no doubt had a lot of help from Bloomberg and other billionaire crooks, but that is history and we are now being slowly killed by a new batch of satanic billionaire crooks. Thank you.
December 27, 2018 at 12:25 PM
The "satanic billionaire crooks" and "ghouls" you claim are in a conspiracy to "slowly kill" you are people. It appears yours is the imagination is the one that is wild or you are trying to cover up that that TA worked with the State Police, the Federal Authorities FBI running operations on StuyTown campus against rent stabilized New Yorker StuyTown tenants.
The NY Times article link was supplied by a couple of commentors.
The private investigator LinkedIn resume link was provided.
1 + 1 = 2
1 The FBI, the State Police, Dan Garodnick, Rob Speyer, Larry Fink, Michael Novogratz, Steve Schwarzman, Daniel Fournier, John Marsh and staff at their respective organizations plus third party contractors, with others, ran extreme force of operations against tenants or a tenant.
+
1 StuyTown tenants quality of life current state includes No Heat, increase in overall crime, increase in violent crimes against women, increase in suicide rate, noise pollution, increase in construction by MTA who is vested interest in condo/coop/hotel development, increase in illegal hotel traffic, increase in transient population replacing permanent community
=
2 All of the above mentioned know quality of life is ruined in Stuyvesant Town and they are not lifting a finger in any of the city, state, federal tenant aid organizations to stop it including the tenant aid organization the former president of the StuyTown TA is on.
The tenant aid organizations have achieved nothing for tenants in 20 years. Some of them even pretend to be on the side of tenants but are more anti-tenant then the developers like Legal Aid Society. Steer clear of Legal Aid Society.
From 2004 to March 31, 2014 Steven Banks was President. Now he is a failing deBlasio Commissioner. Not one landlord was held accountable for harassment in past 20 years including under watch of Banks. Legal Aid Society is filled with lawyers whose firms work for the real estate developers.
Bottomline no city, state or federal authority or organization will hold Blackstone accountable and that is why we have no quality of life or basic necessity as heat.
1 + 1 = 2
1. Corrupt Tenant Association in bed with real estate developers https://town-village.com/2016/12/01/letters-to-the-editor-dec-1-2/
+
1. Corrupt politicians in bed with real estate developers
=
2 No one is serving the public; no one is protecting the rights of tenants; No one cares the quality of life is poor and /or they are causing it to be poor on purpose so they can develop the cleared out property.
Deal with the facts.
Don't engage with name calling and character attacks used by people covering up crimes using slander like "ghouls" "dirtbag" "nutter" "satanic billionaire crooks"
This is a clear example of character attacking by someone trying to cover up the facts:
"STR, why do you allow these long-winded, off-the-wall conspiracy-theory posts? They have no back-up; they don't include any links to the supposed NYT articles or anything else for that matter. They seem to have been written by someone (or may more than one) nutter who has a wild imagination. They are in no way helpful with regard to the current problems we are facing from the Black$tone ghouls and we all are aware that Speyer was a dirtbag and a total crook. He no doubt had a lot of help from Bloomberg and other billionaire crooks, but that is history and we are now being slowly killed by a new batch of satanic billionaire crooks. Thank you."
Putting the oven on for heat is extremely dangerous and extremely stupid. The oven gives off toxic fumes if the door is left open and/or there is nothing cooking in it. Don't give out dangerous information. Grow up.
The TA has for all intents and purposes ceased to exist except to monitor the Facebook groups and to hold the very occasional meeting which is usually primarily devoted to long-winded speeches by politicians.And if you think you can run against the incumbent board, think again. A number of years ago they changed the election rules, backed up by their buddies at Paul Weiss, which make it virtually impossible for anyone other than an incumbent or another friend of the board to win an election. By doing so the board has essentially dug its own grave as many former members (including me ) no longer pay dues
These slumlords are really nickel and diming this heat. My place of work and restaurant I ate in both were overheated. No cut even though it is 50 degrees. This is a raw 50 degrees. These Blackstone bloodsuckers deprive us of heat whenever they can. When will we get help from either the useless TA or the local pols who don’t seem to care.
A large percentage of apartments here are subsidized by NYU or the City. no one is denying this, correct? It's public information--NYU states they have subsidized apartments "in the village" for their students. We currently have some of these subsidized people above us--lazy morons who barely work, hire a nanny and their mother to come help them, even though none of them work, they never leave their apartment, and they spend their days and nights running up and down the hallway. it is pathetic. Can we get a higher class of people here? Can we do anything about these subsidies? How about we form our own tenants association? was there any interest in that? I for one am interested.It is clear the current one is in bed with Blackstone. this is not a conspiracy theory, I only say this because it is obvious from their lack of action on any front that they are working for Blackstone.
also a note in case others have not discovered this--Blackstone doesnt care much about their subsidized renters--they put them all in the same line as the rent stabilized apartments. that way they have all the people paying low price in the same apartment line. they ignore all complaints from these apartment lines. Have at it folks--feel free to do whatever is necessary to get rid of a nasty neighbor who refuses to put down carpets. no one will intervene.
Has anyone else noticed that in spite of all the commenting on this blog and on the TA facebook about the lack of heat, especially the recent deliberate and significant cutback of heat, T&V has not said a word. That little rag is completely controlled by Management - even more so than the TA.
Bill DeBlasio deliberately gave this community away to a known slumlord Kushner business partner Steve Svhwarzman. Pathetic and Corrupt Bill DeBlasio's love for slumlord Jared Kushner is publicly known.
“About the person of Jared Kushner — I respect him a lot,” he said in early January. "I’ve known him for years and find him to be a very reasonable person," de Blasio said of the young real estate developer and former owner of the New York Observer.
“He’s certainly someone I’ve been talking to over these last weeks. He’s someone I intend to stay in touch with on behalf of the people of New York City. He’s someone who really cares about New York City and is someone that would be very helpful to us. So I’m certainly pleased he’ll be in that role,” de Blasio said. “And I can say clearly compared to many other people who've been named to other positions, I find him to be a lot more reasonable and a lot more moderate.”
The simple solution to ALL problems here in Stuyvesant Town and, in fact, worldwide suggested by our esteemed and valued Tenants Association: Be it noisy neighbors, dog shit on the paths or in the stairwells, no carpeting, no heat, garbage on the Oval, brown water coming out of the faucets, poverty, pestilence, wars, unemployment, political discord, man's inhumanity to man, transit difficulties, screaming bros at all hours of the night.... The simple solution is to all this is promulgated by President Susan Steinberg of the Tenants Association: JUST CALL RICK! JUST CALL RICK! JUST CALL RICK! Now why didn't I think of that? A Nobel Prize nominee perhaps?
All the links in one place so those covering up the atrocities by the Peter Cooper Village Stuyvesant Town Tenant Association have to face the truth and stop lying to this community
May 2008 NY Times article Garodnick, Speyer, Harrased Tenants three law firms plus privaate investigators hired to clear out tenants simultaneously acknowledging innocent tenants getting harmed, damaged
December 2016 PCV ST Tenant Association President admitting and professing closeness and gratitude for working with the property management naming nearly every department head
Linked In resume credentials of private investigator who worked for law firm then in-house hired by BLACKSTONE after BLACKSTONE took over the property with credentials citing working in StuyTown with State Police (Attorney General and State Police Department) and Federal Authorities (FBI under Diego Rodriguez)
Investigator StuyTown February 2016 – September 2018
In-House Investigator Sirotkin Varacalli & Hamra, LLP September 2015 – February 2016
"Whining" about the heat is quite a statement. Do you really think it is "whining," or demanding a life-sustaining element to be supplied to you, and for which, incidentally, you are paying?
Moving on . . . I may well do as I wrote as in "put your money where your mouth is."
Meaning: after many conversations with "Management" employees and some truly and surprisingly lovely talks with those who MIGHT be able to send us heat ("MIGHT" because those in higher positions in Blackstone may well be ORDERING their Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper employees to cut heat OR ELSE THEY WILL BE FIRED - don't know, but suspect this is the case),
There Still is Either No Heat for Perhaps Multiple Consecutive Days, or So Little Heat, It is Equivalent to No Heat . . .
I may be going to my bank to open an account in which to deposit rent monies each month until necessary and sufficient heat is supplied.
This, of course, will happen after I enter my EXTREMELY COLD BATHROOM to shower and dress. The drying off and dressing is probably going to be while I am SHIVERING. Yet, the thought of the bank and the letters to various Blackstone employees explaining that my rent money is now where my heat is might warm me a bit.
Whaddya think?
Oh, yes, P.S.: Tim Collins, esteemed attorney for the TA, never phoned me. Whadday think? Long holiday? Really???
Am still waiting for a response from Peter Stuyvesant as to what they intend to do about all of the heat complaints. Doubt that we will get one. Their letters requesting dues payments go right in the garbage.
I don't have the figures but a landlord saves money when he/she doesn't provide heat. There are city rules, too, but they do not take into account the reality of people's situation. Here in Stuy Town some tenants get too much heat, some not so much. The temp monitor is nonsense. My apartment is just okay most times, but I would never say that it is "toasty warm" during the winter months. Many times the pipes are cold when they should not be.
Also... Once again, when I am passing by, I hear the staccato slamming of pucks in our "Ice" playground. This should not be allowed in the midst of a residential community, but there it is. Nice for hockey players, not so nice for the residents who hear this noise.
Management fails big-time here, but they don't care.
Also failing: Our local politicians, who have not even uttered a word of protest.
Also... On another resident blog, a member has stated that most cyclists obey the laws of the city. This is WRONG. I have seen many, many times, cyclists passing through a red light on First Avenue in the smaller cross-streets.
You are fortunate STR that your heat situation is OK. Mine was too up until a few weeks ago. Now I can really sympathize with those who have been deprived of heat for so long. I have had heat now for two hours and it is like heaven. Am dreading when it goes off as it inevitably will. As for city requirements, they are on the edge. When the engineer came up after the heat was on fifteen minutes or so, my bedroom was just at regulation. Had he come up earlier it would likely have been below. We must all record and call the health department when the heat dips below appropriate levels. As for Councilman Powers and the rest, there has been silence.
Stand Up and Fight there are lots of other tenant lawyers out there. If you need a starting point to find one, contact the Urban Justice Center. (646) 602-5600
"Councilman Powers and the rest, there has been silence."
Don't expect much from that guy. He is in deep with the worst of the worst of the Real Estate industry. Just look at what a borderline thug he was during his election. He was no doubt being bankrolled by those thugs and was afraid to let them down. He doesn't work for us, make no mistake about that.
Somebody on the TA Facebook was reminded by the TA that they need dues in order to fight MCIs, etc. When the poster asked why the TA never has opened its books .... Radio Silence.
I had three hours of heat this morning. Now it is freezing in here. Just called and told them I don’t want any engineers coming up, just put on the heat. I’ve had it.
Just went on the 311 site and they say that besides recording temperatures, your elected officials can help. Ha, that is a joke. Hear that Powers, Hoylman and Epstein!
You cannot withhold rent unless you have legal advice. Unfortunately many have inadequate heat here and do not complain, call 311 or do anything about it.
@8:58 AM: thank you very much for the links. I have a hard time with the NYT search engine when it comes looking for articles within any particular time frame. It never seems to work for me , but just resets itself!
Just a note (again and again): This is not a place to vent on national politics. I realize that some local figures are also national, but I can tell when a comment strays too much and damns those on the national stage. There are many, many other places where one can vent. Thanks!
NO HEAT! When I call Resident Services, whomever answers the phone seems to read from a written script: "I'll notify the engineers and they will look into it. Shall I send someone to your apartment to check? Shall I bring a thermometer?" My response: "I don't want a thermometer. I just want some fu*kin' heat." CLICK. Maybe I should JUST CALL RICK. He can walk on water according to the Tenants Association.
The silence from the cheerleaders is deafening! Even the ole "if you lived in the country" dame is quiet. Maybe they're all away for the Holidays? Maybe they don't want to "stoop to the level" of the whiners and complainers who they claim to despise and love to bully. Maybe they're afraid of this unscrupulous management?
"Just a note (again and again): This is not a place to vent on national politics. I realize that some local figures are also national, but I can tell when a comment strays too much and damns those on the national stage. There are many, many other places where one can vent. Thanks!"
You must admit, STR, that getting the truth out of those people in the office is like dealing with the WH Press Office!
"You cannot withhold heat unless you have legal advice."
Sure. Absolutely. Simon Says, Mommy Says, Big Brother Says, Daddy will paddle you, Mommy will send you to bed without supper.
Alexis De Toqueville: 'American people always get precisely the government that they deserve.'
And the landlord they deserve. Cringe, bow, complain but not too loudly and take your whipping.
When people act in concert, joined together to end their common misery, change is the result.
Who the hell do you think makes the "law," enforces the "law" and benefits from it? So many complain about our "representatives" in local government. THEIR law?
I would say, "just sit still and take the abuse," but I will be more situation appropriate: "just sit there and shiver."
Powers “the community man,” campaigned on his roots to this specific community. He grew up here and his family still lives here. He promised, with his in your face campaigning, to fight for the tenants of this property.
Like his predecessor Garodnick, he has left us with nothing more than a whimper. He should be ashamed to show his face around here, but like Steinberg, they think they are loved by all.
I was one of the original batch of children in Stuy Town circa 1947 to 1955 or so. My mother told me years later that her boss had written her a strong letter of recommendation for an apt. And there was mention of “key money” paid. When I asked as a ten year old what key money was she said “ a bribe.” P..S. There was always plenty of heat.
The Cheerleaders are back to scold someone who questioned the use of the word "campus" when describing the property. They're always lurking, waiting to attack.
Anonymous said... Powers “the community man,” campaigned on his roots to this specific community. He grew up here and his family still lives here. He promised, with his in your face campaigning, to fight for the tenants of this property.
Like his predecessor Garodnick, he has left us with nothing more than a whimper. He should be ashamed to show his face around here, but like Steinberg, they think they are loved by all. December 29, 2018 at 8:38 PM
Or they are laying low as instructed while covering up the years they followed Garodnik's lead. He is in the NY Times article at the onset of Rob Speyer's assault on the community; Garodnick is there in the middle of the onslaught which we now know started with three law firms and a private dick then added more law firms and private dicks including the private dick who (falsely) brags of her criminal conquests during the assault on the community; and Garodnick is there in the end as Marcia Kramer reports on the scandal breaking, Garodnick and his city council pals pull the city council funding of "police costs" under the guise of "sensitivity training" (albeit duplicative) at the Simon Weisenthal Center.
The corruption, the creepiness of the crimes is going to be exposed
Garodnick will be front and center of the line up. Powers and his lobbying clients will be there too.
That whole “campus” conversation is inane. One of the old dears was upset by that phrase. Anything to feel heard. It is tragic they way we marginalize the elderly. Respect your elders and listen to them. You may learn something. The owners of this place are trying to run out the aged and infirmed....just awful
Conversation overheard between two obviously NYU students: "Oh, my dorm is at Stuy Town. It's pretty nice except there are so many cranky, old people there. One of them had the nerve to knock at my door and ask me to lower the music. Geez, it was only midnight on a Friday night. What is this? An old age home? And the lady below me complained about the noise from my high heels. F-her. I'm not spending money on carpets. I'm only going to be here for a year. Screw these old farts. They should only hurry up and die." NICE, huh? REAL NICE.
The implications of New York State Police, New York Attorney General Investigators, and Federal Agents FBI running operations on a college campus may have different rules and guidelines, processes and procedures then running ops on an adult residential complex. Maybe that is why the TA is all shady and sensitive when anyone calls it like it is, a campus. Even the universities call it a campus. We have campus security, campus SUNY guidelines for security, thousands of dorms, for all intents and purposes this is a campus. The feds and state police ran ops on a college campus and that needs to be reported to parents of the college kids and included in the crime statistics that colleges are required to report in their safety reports for parents.
A federal operation is no small joke and is about more than AIRBNB hotels.
NYU owes parents as do all the universities on the serious crimes this private investigator lists including the drugs and larceny and on what the operations were really about.
This is a big deal that the TA cannot just sweep under the rug no matter how slick and slippery their PR guy Rick is.
overcharges are original apartment last month one price, added a new fridge and ac and now the same apartment this month is 5 times the price. Um, that's an overcharge and you all know it's bullshit. Not to mention sttill under J52!
Garodnick did nothing for this community in his last term and it now appears that Powers will follow in his footsteps. He talked a good game in the beginning but has done nothing to assist with this terrible heat situation.
That’s is what the TA should be doing and is not. There is no organization here to help us. Some tenants do not even report heat issues. A lot of talk but individuals are afraid I guess.
I didn’t see any cheerleaders on the campus thread either. However, this is not a college campus, not officially anyway, so using that word is likely to rile people up. The number of spoiled brat students living here is a very sore topic and has created big problems for lots of their neighbors. All the students belong in dorms somewhere - not here - where their typical, immature college behavior won’t bother any non-students.
12:35 PM, if that conversation really took place, those two young "ladies" are going to find it very hard when they go out into the real world and find that their cavalier attitude gets them nowhere. Might get them a smack in the kisser if they are not careful who they treat with such disdain, but they may need to adjust their attitude if they want to live in the real world of adults who work, pay taxes and need sleep. Nasty little bitches!
I wonder if the aforementioned investigations, etc., extended to the meth factory and the suicide by sulfuric acid. Does anyone know what happened about the lawsuit that the tenants at 451 were bringing against Blackstone, NYU, et al.?
All happening on your watch, Rick. Increase in suicides, crimes against women, refusal to provide heat and general filth and squalor on the property (e.g., disgusting mattresses). Let's not forget the piggyback robberies and general decline in the QOL that we are all enduring.
The city, the state, the feds, the tenant association, the landlord blackstone don't want more than 15% of the apartments to be occupied by rent stabilized tenants. that is why they were running operations against rent stabilized tenants. one of them is a supplier of office supplies and printer ink contracts with stuytown. something shady going on there.
I wonder how many hours around a conference room table our “management” spent coming up with that ridiculous slogan for workers shirts. Things are so ass-backwards in this place, it’s almost comical at this point.
Many tenants did not get rent bills in a timely manner this month. Still have not received mine. When I called today the rep said that they were sent out on the 20th. I paid my rent at the office today and many people are coming in about the bill. They are telling people they can wait but I do not trust them .As for the heart situation it is deplorable. My pipes have been cold all day so far. Seems that if it is over 40 degrees they do not give adequate heat. Resident Services Office was warm as toast. I really am starting to think that they are trying to harass the RS tenants out.
Two robberies in the oval this morning. Way to go Rick! Crime is the worst I remember on this property, and there is nobody to blame except Rick and Blackstone.
At this point, at the very end of a particularly hard, sad, unhealthful, and misery filled year for many of us in Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, I am more than a little convinced that:
Whether or not some employees, including those in "Management" and "Security" and "Legal" may or may not be nasty and even sadistic individuals, the hell they are imposing and deepening and widening
IS NOT THEIR DECISION.
I experienced something identical when I worked in a huge machine at a time of planned destruction. Arrogant, predatory, emotionally disturbed people living thousands of miles away, in that case, decided to highjack one of the basic underpinnings of life in this country. The details don't matter.
What matters is that I experienced the destruction of my own career and I watched hundreds and hundreds of my colleagues experience similar destruction. Many of them became seriously and even terminally physically ill; one or two of them ended up homeless; too many lost families. Nearly all suffered permanent psychological and emotional damage. Many more than one of them were deliberately incarcerated on false charges and left in a particularly frightening city jail over weekends to scare the hell out of them and other would-be protesters.
Entire neighborhoods were hurt. It is still going on.
The dynamics were identical to what is happening here, as were the tactics.
People were turned against each other. People were made to choose between jobs/paychecks/health care for themselves and their families or their colleagues and friends. "If I don't hurt you, my boss will hurt me."
"If I don't fire you, my boss will fire me."
People in previously benign and even helpful and constructive administrative positions were forced into becoming predators and tormentors of their colleagues. If they said "NO" to the demand to torment and help fire many targeted individuals, they themselves were targeted and tormented. And ultimately fired or hounded out of their professions and careers.
(Part 2 regarding WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE MISERY HERE):
Most previously kind and decent people were turned into nightmares who hunted their underlings. Few people said, "I won't do it" when it was demanded that they use appallingly vicious and malicious and dishonest tactics to hound and hurt their colleagues.
I truly believe something very similar is going on here. There are several people I know in "Management," and many more in "Security," and they engage in either outright injurious behaviors, or the kind of passive behaviors which result in much misery. There are others whom I know who work in other capacities here in Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village who seem to be in the same quandary: trapped.
I don't think anyone here, with a couple of exceptions (probably principally in "Legal" - maybe) is doing any of this to us independently. I think some of the details are thought up by some particularly unintelligent people, yes.
But I am pretty well persuaded that the overarching plan, and the growing and worsening destruction of safety, peace, quiet, services, land, trees, healthful conditions, cleanliness, legal protections, buildings, and so on:
COMES FROM "THE TOP," as some would phrase it.
It seems clear to me that Rick, as well as other people who SEEM to have the ability to do the right thing DO NOT IN FACT have the ability to do the right thing if they want to stay part of the employed population.
This newest, and probably most dangerous-to-life-and-health initiative of heat deprivation has caused me tremendous grief and worry and anger over the last 14 days. Never in my many decades here have I endured sustained denial of heat. Until beginning on December 17, 2018.
I have registered dozens of complaints, had engineers here, and spoken to some of those in positions of seeming "power" in long conversations face-to-face.
I don't believe that anything short of a combination of united legal action and media coverage will change this.
BECAUSE: I do not believe that Rick Hayduk or ANYONE WORKING HERE can supply the heat anymore without being fired for doing it. Period.
Do you remember? Last year, our own STR wrote that he had overheard some "suits" as they walked around the Oval. They were exclaiming over the possibilities of further and more injurious exploitation as they crowed about what a RESOURCE the Oval was.
It is the twisted examples of human avarice and moral bankruptcy who are doing this to us.
I continue to believe that we can STAND UP AND FIGHT. We need to understand who the enemy is, and who the enemy thrusts
Private equity titan Stephen Schwarzman celebrated his $350 million donation to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study artificial intelligence with a robot-themed party at his prestigious Park Avenue pad.
The Blackstone billionaire, a close adviser to President Donald Trump, has given a huge anchor donation to MIT for a new college to harness and understand the power of AI, which will ultimately be backed by $1 billion in funding.
The very sober-sounding MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing, announced in October, will create 50 new faculty positions and fellowships for multiple graduate students beginning next fall.
So what better way to celebrate a successful 2018 and the holidays than with a robot-themed bacchanalian bash? Stephen and wife Christine lit up their 740 Park Ave. pad in late December with laser-flashing, futuristic, dancing power robots firing dry ice from dual machine guns, body-painted bots, and female dancers writhing in tight silver bodysuits with disco balls on their heads.
Despite a strict social-media ban, guests including Paris and Nicky Hilton were seen in a few posts dancing wildly with the robots raining down a fog of dry ice, while priceless paintings by Dali and Modigliani from the Schwarzmans’ stunning art collection could be viewed in the background, amid other flashing neon decor. Guests included a host of Wall Street bigwigs, and many of the Schwarzmans’ society friends, one insider said, adding that Steve “is so excited about AI. It is the future, and he wanted to share that with his guests in a fun way.”
It is not clear if any of the MIT professors made it to the party, but there were plenty of others on Instagram commenting that the bash was “bananas.” Announcing his MIT donation, Schwarzman, 71, worth an estimated $13.8 billion, had said, “There is no more important opportunity or challenge facing our nation than to responsibly harness the power of artificial intelligence.” His spokesperson declined to comment.
"The city, the state, the feds, the tenant association, the landlord blackstone don't want more than 15% of the apartments to be occupied by rent stabilized tenants. that is why they were running operations against rent stabilized tenants. one of them is a supplier of office supplies and printer ink contracts with stuytown. something shady going on there."
Please clarify the reference to a supplier of office supplies, etc. Is that person a RS tenant or colluding against the RS tenants. Your post is rather ambiguous.
STR, maybe you could require posters provide a little back-up to their outrageous claims and assertions? Thank you.
STAND UP AND FIGHT: You write a lot and your posts become wearisome. Maybe if you provided some identifying facts about the monstrous evil you experienced, we (or I) could believe you are not just a crank. Sorry, STR, but this blog is really getting crazy.
Firings and removals will not address the situation. As long as we are owned by Blackstone, it will continue to get worse. We have no support. Nothing.
Where are the people praising management after yet another attempted crime in this property?? This time right in the middle of the oval. If we can’t walk through the oval and feel safe, then nowhere on this property is safe anymore.
As indicated, if at least several other people will join with me, openly, I will come out, so to speak.
And then, if only a handful of us, we will Stand Up and Fight.
If you prefer to first contact me on the e-mail address, then that is fine, too.
quietenjoymentnow@gmail.com
I would like to add here, though, my hypothesis, and this is something of a reversal of what I wrote last night (just a theory, mind you):
Blackstone has an agreement with some of its employees: "We will make sure that you have a job, money, benefits, etc. if you will agree to be the public face of wherever you are working. We will do what we do to the population to whom you are nominally responsible. All of their complaints, legal actions and such, will be handled by us and you will neither come to harm nor lose employment. You will bear the brunt of the fury, and possibly even be named in court actions, but we will protect you."
I too have found the last few weeks with minimal heat terrible and uncomfortable. I have resented the lies told to me about the windows being at fault and the inability or lack of management’s incentive to provide us with heat. I really do believe that it is an intentional cut in heat and comes from the top. I slept in an extra fleece robe last night and felt better. On these issues I agree with Stand up and Fight. What I do not agree with is that we tenants can change things here without a viable TA or interested and proactive local pols. In addition, many residents just put up with the cold. When my thermometer arrives tomorrow I will call 311. I am sure that many tenants do not bother. Unfortunately there are not the numbers here who could effectively put pressure on Blackstone. That being said, I do believe that this lack of heat has been the worst harassment I have encountered here bar none.
>>Sorry, STR, but this blog is really getting crazy.<<
Again and again, I allow people to basically post what they want that is happening in this community. It is not up to me to censor if a person does not use profanity or does not out someone who is private. If what you want is doable (each post has to be verified for absolute truth), then this blog would become a working chore, and, frankly, I wouldn't do it anymore. It is up to you (sorry) to challenge a post if you disagree with the content. Your freedom, this person's freedom....
Frankly, I care not about Blackstone’s agreements and deals with their employees. It is irrelevant to me and I do not go around questioning them. What is relevant to me is heat and the lack of it. Obviously Hayduk and other employees need their jobs and take orders from the top. As for action, I believe that rent strikes and such would prove to be costly to those participating. This is not the radical 60’s. This is not a political issue. Foremost, the existence of a proactive TA with lawyers is essential to fight and we all know that we do not have one.
Anonymous Anonymous said... I wonder if the aforementioned investigations, etc., extended to the meth factory and the suicide by sulfuric acid. Does anyone know what happened about the lawsuit that the tenants at 451 were bringing against Blackstone, NYU, et al.?
All happening on your watch, Rick. Increase in suicides, crimes against women, refusal to provide heat and general filth and squalor on the property (e.g., disgusting mattresses). Let's not forget the piggyback robberies and general decline in the QOL that we are all enduring.
Here is the T&V link and text re “Two attempted robberies on Oval:
https://town-village.com/2018/12/31/two-attempted-robberies-on-oval/ “Stuy Town’s Public Safety department is on the lookout for two male suspects who attempted to rob an older man as well as a couple in the Oval early on New Year’s Eve morning. A Town & Village reader alerted us that as he was walking around the Oval at around 12:30 a.m., he saw a man being assaulted by two people. Fortunately, the victim was able to get help from a couple of other people who happened to be around. The reader noticed this happened near the security booth, which was unmanned at the time. Asked about this, Stuy Town General Manager Rick Hayduk confirmed the incident. According to Hayduk, they’d approached the man on the Oval and said, “Give us your money.” The resident refused and continued to walk away and they didn’t chase him. However, the pair then tried the same thing with a nearby couple, who also declined to turn over their money, and the would-be muggers fled empty-handed towards First Avenue. “The first resident immediately reported it to Public Safety who canvassed the area (officers on foot and by video) to no avail,” Hayduk said, adding that the resident asked management not to call the NYPD. Hayduk added, “The Oval booth is only occupied when the officer is seeking shelter, otherwise that officer is patrolling the Oval or the immediate vicinity.”
Of course, as per one of the 8 comments on the article, one “cheerleader’ felt obliged to chime in.
BTW, 12:35 PM-Your post on the entitled NYU students says it all.
Those of us who were here not just a few years, remember the brick guard building right at the Oval, in front of the Oval lawn, where a PS officer (I don't believe they were even called that at the time) was stationed until relieved by another PS officer. There was ALWAYS someone present there. Day, night....
As for the PS Office--how many times have I seen dog smears and even unpicked crap nearby, how many times have I seen someone pedaling a bicycle right by that office. As I stated, unless one runs over a PS officer on a bicycle at the Oval, chances are good no one is going to stop you. As for those monitors.... How many times have I seen, inside, just two people monitoring those screens. They are monitoring Stuy Town and Peter Cooper Village, all the buildings, everything that is outside.... Two people, maybe three at times....
They seem to have a pattern of giving three or four hours of heat a day and claiming that it will keep the apartments warm. Unbelievable ridiculous reasoning and probably purposeful to save money.
Bill DeBlasio wants to develop the land under PCVST so he can advance his pathetic career. His accomplishments for constituents are zero while his accomplishments for real estate developers are sky high including the scandalous Rivington debacle where his chummy pal lobbyinst James Capalino got Marvin Rubin off the hook. No heat equals tenants moving out. It is a strategy.
DeBlasio has heat at home. Schwarzman has heat at home. DeBlasio campaigned here with James Capalino on 16th and First Avenue when DeBlasio and Capalino knew they are throwing this community under the bus with the DeBlasios both driving the bus over and through the people here.
DeBlasio is trying to take credit for pre-k which started years earlier under his predecessor Bloomberg. Bloomberg handed DeBlasio a success story with pre-k but DeBlasio messed that up to with a staged, scripted, dubious pre-k panel of scions of real estate developers and their pals who are all commercial advertisement Bloggers. Everyone at this table pre-k panelists is tied to major real estate deals in New York City and has little to no experience in education. It is a scripted panel of coupon bloggers aka brand ambassadors who shill for whatever product will pay them and at the helm are offspring of major developers and investors. The video is pathetic watching them pretend to be impromptu but the DeBlasios give it away nodding their approval when a line is delivered right.
Everything about the current Mayor and his administration is run by and for the real estate developers. Bill DeBlasio broke every promise. Never again voting for DeBlasio for anything.
235 comments:
1 – 200 of 235 Newer› Newest»Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you, STR!
You are a treasure!
Thank you!
My bath tub has backed up with brown-brackish water.
And when I run the faucets in the bathroom the water is the same discolored appearance.
With a weird odor.
I've heard other tenants have had the same issue.
What to do?
I've called Resident Services and they tell me to just run the water and it will go away.
I've tried but the problem keeps returning.
I called my friend who is a licensed plumber.
I've called the Tenants Association hotline.
I've even called Susan Steinberg, President of the Tenants Association.
They all came up with the simple solution.
How could I have not thought of it myself.
JUST CALL RICK!
Christmas Eve gift:
Urine in the elevator and dog droppings in the stairwell.
Another "amenity", huh?
>>Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you, STR!
You are a treasure!
Thank you!<<
Same to you, yours and...everybody!
Fantastic "collage" STR! Thank you and a Very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you. We LOVE you!!!
They had a real waiting list then and didn't have to beg, plead and bribe and cruise around in a tacky advertising van to get tenants. They also had stipulations as to what rules tenants had to obey and they enforced those rules. Hard to believe it's the same place.
I wonder what the heating system was like back then? The mongrels running this dump today make sure we don't get a puff of heat that brings the indoor temperature over the legal minimum. They do that by constantly turning the heat off for extended periods and then turning it on for a short period. Bastards.
The heat has never been worse than it is now and they blame it on the sensors. They are giving the legal minimum and turning it on and off.
In one post, the TA lawyer was named in response to an entreaty for a housing lawyer to help get us heat. The TA SHOULD BE TAKING CARE OF THIS. The fact that it is not is despicable.
I've tried to contact Tim Collins, the TA lawyer, recommended on this blog.
Twice, today. First time: receptionist, who suggested I call when he returns, in "half an hour."
I did so, and no one at his firm was there. Only voicemail.
Any bets on (1) IF he phones me back; (2) WHAT he says about the no-heat/little heat situation here???
P.S.: I'll make my own bet: all of that verbiage about Ravitch, et al. is most likely TRUE. I know, I know: it is nearly impossible to believe (and understand) why people behave in such destructive ways. Sad, but the norm.
I notice many of the postings on your blog mention the word "heat."
Kindly explain what that word means.
I sure don't get any.
https://ny.curbed.com/2018/11/28/18116459/rent-stabilization-new-york-city-council-tenant-displacement
Happy Holidays
Let's get to filing those harassment lawsuits in 2019 with the new T A
Has a nuclear weapon gone off in PigStuyTown?
No, it's just the radiator pipes clanging.
BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG...so soothing.
Reminds me of the tenement I grew up in many moons ago.
Except my parents paid I think $62 per month rent..and that was high...lol!
Merry Christmas, Mr. STR!
Merry Christmas all! Thank you STR for your work. Thru your dedication, we may come thru this dark time in Stuy Town history. Thank you for calling attention to all the owner transgressions and giving us a place to voice our displeasure.
At least if the pipes clang it means heat
Thank you STR for giving us a place to vent but I don’t see us getting through these dark days with this management without a real TA or actual actions.
Stand Up and Fight said...
I've tried to contact Tim Collins, the TA lawyer, recommended on this blog.
Twice, today. First time: receptionist, who suggested I call when he returns, in "half an hour."
I did so, and no one at his firm was there. Only voicemail.
Any bets on (1) IF he phones me back; (2) WHAT he says about the no-heat/little heat situation here???
First of all, you called him the DAY BEFORE CHRISTMAS, a day when many businesses close early, which his firm very well may have. Or maybe they were just very busy trying to get things done or meet a hard deadline before the end of the day and needed to let calls go to voicemail at some point. Secondly, why are you doubting that he will call you back? Returning potential clients’ phone calls is how his firm gets new business. Thirdly, why are pre-judging what he might have to say about the heat situation here, instead of waiting to hear what he has to say? Even if he doesn’t end up teling you what you want to hear, at least give the man a chance.
December 25, 2018 at 2:32 PM
He had enough chances and failed this community since 2003. Probably longer. Not one win.
What I don’t get is why if he is the TA lawyer he isn’t acting already for them on our behalf. Isn’t that what a TA lawyer is supposed to do. I agree with Stand up and Fight that he will not act. The TA took apartments of people without heat over a month ago and did nothing with it.
2:32 P.M.:
I most definitely am giving Mr. Collins a chance; I believe that once in a while, someone does the right thing.
His firm's representative, or receptionist, was quite clear about when the gentleman would return. She most assuredly mentioned nothing about the firm's "closing early." I am well aware of business practices in this nation, and had no reason to believe that he was not returning to the office at the time specified.
As for all of my doubts, well . . . I am much bewildered that you do not understand the many reasons doubts feature in this venture.
I fervently wish that the in-person meeting with Keith Powers, including two other Stuyvesant Town residents, and the many calls to his office did not end in my knowledge of betrayal and lies and near certain corruption. Ditto for my conversations with Harvey Epstein's staff, and the truly revelatory conversation among my husband, Harvey and myself.
Even more powerfully do I long to report that the communications with some of the figureheads of "Stuytown" or whatever the heck brand they've come up with . . . again . . . many in number, and some of them pleasant and even delightful . . . resulted in ANY positive result.
Alas and alack - no luck.
So, 2:32 PM Anonymous - I trust that you will have some understanding and even sympathy regarding my doubts.
NO HEAT AGAIN THIS MORNING!
I can't possibly be the only one.
The TA’s lawyer probably didn’t act because he wasn’t asked to act by the TA.
Stand Up and Fight, you have to be able to PROVE a case AND Blackstone actually has to be BREAKING THE LAW. They have, generally, been giving more heat than what the law calls for. I do think that the City’s heat requirements are too low, but they are what they are.
It will be interesting to hear what Tim Collins has to say once you speak with him. Please let us know.
HEY DOWNSTAIRS NEIGHBOR, COULD YOU PLEASE LOWER YOUR RADIO WHEN EVERYONE AROUND IS TRYING TO SLEEP? YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER! YOU ARE NOT A KID FOR GOD'S SAKES!
My radiator pipes are also very loud.
I doubt that Blackstone is giving more heat than required. Befor I left on a short Christmas holiday I was getting heat maybe for five or six hours. A once comfortable apartment had become chilly. It was if they suddenly cut the heat.
Maybe the TA should ask him to act. We aren’t getting consistent heat. They have cut it down.
It was like Christmas Day in the Workhouse. WE NEED HEAT, YOU BASTARDS! WE NEED HEAT!
"Maybe the TA should ask him to act. We aren’t getting consistent heat. They have cut it down."
You bet they have cut it down. I don't know anybody else in the City who has this kind of problem with heat. I don't know anybody who lives in NYCHA, but I think that only NYCHA tenants are worse off. Blackstone is running PCVST the same way DeBlasio runs NYCHA. It is filthy, cold and noisy. Hayduk and his crew should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. They are not fit to run an apartment complex. Hayduk and his phoney smile makes me want to vomit.
They go by the book when they only have to give you 68 degrees in the evening. They got it down to a science. Glad I'm not paying $4500/month around here. SUCKERS!!!
Returned from vacation to same cold apartment. They are giving the bare legal minimum. Will not have the engineer come again. Last time they gave me heat right before he came up. Next step is recording the temps and calling 311. Also going in to complain. They told me this crap about sealing my windows and ac. Pure drivel as my apartment was warm all last winter and up until two weeks ago. Got a plea for dues from the TA today. They get crap until they deal with this heat issue.
You go out in the hallway and it is warmer than in the apartment. They are like slum landlords.
@ Stand Up and Fight
When you speak with Tim Collins, you should mention that former TA President John Marsh RECENTLY called the heating system a FAILURE on the TA’s FB page. Tim and John know each other well, so maybe Tim talking with John about the problem would be helpful for Tim.
8:54. They are not giving more than the minimum limit. They were up until a few weeks ago in my apartment but not anymore. And this is something the TA should take on automatically. They read what is going on with the heat here on their blog.
When there is a deadly fire caused by a space heater, or a child or senior dies from pneumonia or flu caused by lack of heat, then maybe these bloodsucking, parasitical scumbags will be held accountable. Hayduk, go back to where you came from because you are not fit for the job you currently hold. You are letting people get sick and some may die because of your parsimonious approach to how much (or little) comfort you permit them to have in their homes. I hope you don't get future employment in the apartment managerial industry because your reputation will follow you.
As I wrote recently, I was warned last spring by a knowledgeable employee that Blackstone had planned to decrease our heat.
All of the idiotic, expensive-to-produce written garbage we read last year about their marvelous heating system was a harbinger of things to come. We've seen this tactic before: they begin a new version of harassment slowly, producing copious garbage in the run-up - garbage verbiage in signs, enclosed in rent checks, in their e-mails. Their "entertainment" invasion and attack of the spring/summer/fall was a splendid example.
Until last Monday, December 17, 2018, I was one of the tenants with usually too much heat. All of the sudden, on Monday, the 17th there was little heat, and usually no heat all day and all night. This has continued until today, as I write.
I read many, and most telling, larger numbers of complaints here and in the TA Facebook page.
It is my not at all humble opinion that yes, this is DELIBERATE. I agree with all of you who think this is the case.
NO, TIM COLLINS DID NOT RETURN MY CALL. YES, IT IS HIS JOB TO DEFEND US AGAINST THIS PREDATION WITHOUT ANY INDIVIDUAL TENANT OR TENANTS ASKING HIM TO DO SO.
Please, please, please: don't write nasty comments here to other people. It's been my understanding that ALL of the tenants here are treated badly, regardless of what they pay.
As with all tyrants, dictators and their ilk: DIVIDE AND CONQUER is a classic and highly effective tactic. Please don't help them hurt us further.
PART ONE - STUYTOWN BLIGHTED BY CRIMINALS
According to her LinkedIn Resume she worked as a Blackstone Private investigator with State and Federal law enforcement building criminal cases against StuyTown tenants, first working at a law firm then working directly for StuyTown once Blackstone took over in 2016.
According to her LinkedIn Resume she with StuyTown Property caught over 100 illegal Airbnb hoteliers
After personally viewing surveillance footage she has successful criminal convictions of StuyTown tenants
When were these trials?
Why is there no coverage anywhere in the press on what is a big headline if it is true
100 AIRBNB StuyTown Hotels Criminally Prosecuted by State and Federal Authorities
A State and Federal takedown of 100 illegal hotels and not one headline during years of big angry headlines by City, State and Federal authorities and AIRBNB
NONE OF THIS IS REPORTED ANYWHERE IN THE NEWS SO WHAT DID SHE REALLY SPEND HER TIME DOING?
NOWHERE ARE THESE 100 AIRBNB CAUGHT CASES REPORTED OR RECORDED IN CITY RECORDS
During the same time period StuyTown experiences increase in crimes unnoticed as
10 Minute Rape of Young Woman in Vestibule
Half dozen suicides
Rape on 14th Street
Hockey Stick Attack and Robbery
Multiple assaults and robberies
HERE IS HER LINKEDIN PAGE
SHE IS ONE OF THE INVESTIGATORS BLACKSTONE HIRED TO SPY ON STUYTOWN TENANTS THAT CLAIMS OVER 100 HOTELS CAUGHT AND CLAIMS HER WORK WITH STATE AND FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT LED TO SUCCESSFUL CONVICTIONS
WHERE ARE THE STUYTOWN RECORDS ON THE NEW YORK STATE AND FEDERAL "SUCCESSFUL CRIMINAL CONVICTIONS" OF STUYTOWN RESIDENTS BROUGHT ON BY OTHER STUYTOWN RESIDENTS THAT THE PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR KEPT INFORMED ON THEIR CASES?
ANYONE OUT THERE KNOW THEY ARE ONE OF THE TENANTS TARGETED BY THE BLACKSTONE PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR THAT WAS CRIMINALLY PROSECUTED OR WAS NOT CRIMINALLY PROSECUTED LIKELY HAS A HELLUVA HARASSMENT CASE AGAINST BLACKSTONE, THE PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR, THE LAW FIRM, THE TENANTS WHO MADE THE COMPLAINTS - IF INDEED THERE ARE NO CRIMINAL CONVICTIONS AS THE PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR CLAIMS ON HER LINKED IN PAGE.
Why globally publish a false LinkedIn page?
https://www.linkedin.com/in/karenzeilingold
Karen Zeilingold
Experienced Criminal Investigator | Master's in Forensic Psychology
Seattle, Washington Security and Investigations
Previous StuyTown, Sirotkin Varacalli & Hamra, LLP, John Jay College (CUNY)
Education City University of New York-John Jay College of Criminal Justice Investigator StuyTown
February 2016 – September 2018 • 2 years 8 months
Greater New York City Area
StuyTown is an 80-acre private property in Manhattan that has its own public safety force with sworn peace officers
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
• Conduct formal investigations on community and criminal matters including
larceny, assault, narcotics distribution, criminal mischief and domestic
abuse/violence.
• Lead teams to track down illegal hoteliers using platforms like Airbnb and
Facebook, and support special sting operations to catch perpetrators, resulting
in over 100 illegal hoteliers caught.
• Generate and update incident reports for criminal and property incidents;
communicate with tenants and give updates on status of their case, so they feel
supported and informed.
• Work directly with both state law enforcement and federal agencies on criminal
cases that involve tenants of the property; analyze video surveillance of specific
incidents and compile all related materials to hand over to them, resulting in
successful criminal convictions.
PART TWO - STUYTOWN BLIGHTED BY CRIMINALS
In-House Investigator
Sirotkin Varacalli & Hamra, LLP
September 2015 – February 2016 • 6 months
Greater New York City Area
A law firm dedicated to providing services related to litigation, criminal defense,
intellectual property and corporate affairs
Sirotkin Varacalli & Hamra, LLP
• Conducted comprehensive background checks on our clients and plaintiffs
through Facebook, Instagram and several professional background check
services to provide the lawyers preliminary admissible materials.
• Led all legal research and evidence analysis, like reviewing video surveillance
footage, photographs, and other discovery materials; summarized findings in
investigative memorandum which were used as submissions in trials.
• Directed interviews of prospective witnesses and other prospective parties, and paired them with respective evidence, to assemble a complete factual picture prior to going to trial.
Graduate Research Assistant (Investigative Psychology Research Unit)
John Jay College (CUNY)
September 2014 – October 2015 1 year 2 months
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Director: C. Gabrielle Salfati, PhD.
After reading this about Blackstone Private Investigators spying on StuyTown tenants with City and State Law Enforcement does anyone think Blackstone is any different then Tishman Speyer BlackRock hiring private investigators to spy on us?
Blackstone Steve Schwarzman is worse, the secrecy, with the New York State Government and Federal Government spying on StuyTown tenants claiming 100 criminal prosecutions done in secrecy means the State Government and Federal Government are working for Blackstone.
Blackstone Steve Schwarzman is our landlord and is the Leadership of our Governing Bodies and controllers of our Rights, Quality of Life, Heat, Safety, ... oh and Rights not to be spied on by anyone, including the creepy landlord.
Sure the lack of heat sucks. So does the spying by neighbors on neighbors with private investigators hired by Blackstone, State law enforcement and federal law enforcement.
No or little heat from 3 to 8
Yesteryear
Blackstone, BlackRock, Ivanhoe Cambridge and Tishman Speyer tried to repeat the Gas House District Cleansing history of yesteryear using the excuse of a neighborhood blighted with endemic crime by predatory criminals so Blackstone, BlackRock, Ivanhoe Cambridge and Tishman Speyer and all they tirelessly worked with, set out to prosecute StuyTown tenants as predatory criminals gaming the system
Per Stuyvesant Town Peter Cooper Village Wikipedia Page
"the site of the complex had become known as the "Gashouse District" because of the many tanks that dominated the streetscapes.[7] The tanks, which sometimes leaked, made the area undesirable to live in, as did the Gas House Gang and other predators who operated in the area."
"Before the construction of Stuyvesant Town, the neighborhood contained 18 city blocks, with public schools, churches, factories, private homes, apartments, small businesses and even relatively new modern-style apartment buildings. In all, 600 buildings, containing 3,100 families, 500 stores and small factories, three churches, three schools, and two theaters, were razed. As would be repeated in later urban renewal projects, some 11,000 persons were forced to move from the neighborhood. In 1945, The New York Times called the move from the site "the greatest and most significant mass movement of families in New York's history."
Full of a beautiful tribute of tweets to Kissing Trees
https://twitter.com/amandamburden?lang=en
Christmas day. Zero heat. Shameful. Stephen Schwartzman, the head of Blackstone, is a predatory ghoul, living the high life off of the suffering of others. I hope his karma comes back one day to get him good.
It would not surprise me if people have already contracted pneumonia from lack of heat. It cannot be proven in the elderly.
I agree that there has been a cut in heat over the past two weeks. My apartment was also overheated until that time. The heat goes on for a couple of hours a few times a day and gradually the apartment cools again..This is purposeful.
Most days a few short spurts of heat, then a cold apartment. This is deliberate and they are telling the engineers to come up while we have heat from 8 to 10 and take readings then. Then they tell them to get our acs covered and window latches tight. They cannot bullshit me because I had heat just two weeks ago, window issues and all.
They will continue to do nothing. And I will not pay dues until I get heat.
The City of NY is renting apartments from Blackstone to house families "in need."
These folks clearly are getting significant subsidies from the City.
Blackstone makes out like a bandit.
Minimal vacancy rate.
Apartments taken out of rent-stabilization.
Only four or five apartments per building are rented to City subsidized tenants so it remains under radar.
I DEFY Tenants Association to state that I am wrong.
I have this info directly from someone in Blackstone Office.
Rick says that Blackstone can't afford heat until everyone starts paying more in rent.
Which Feds are they talking about? SDNY Southern District New York? EDNY Eastern District of New York? Director Diego Rodriguez?
By what jurisdiction are the Feds running ops in StuyTown?
The mean person who accused someone of being off their meds just got caught in a big, fat, offensive, condescending lie. Must be because they know they are getting exposed for their big, fat, offensive, condescending true selves.
Maybe the private investigator can explain herself, her StuyTown Hotel 100 criminal cases, her working with full force of State and Federal authorities against middle class tenants, her surveillance techniques she used on StuyTown and why the Tenant
Association never told any of us about this.
The feds are supposed to protect us from the likes of Blackstone!
The feds are not supposed to attack us for Blackstone.
what happened to the HEAT in Stuy Town?
my place in like an icebox
minimal if any heat
lots of my neighbors complain about freezing conditions
others say their apartments are like an oven
kindly explain
thank you
The Private Investigator's Linkedin Resume gives undeniable reasons the poster of the below stupid, mean comment should be eating their condescending and completely incorrect words. Thank goodness we are not all stooping to slander of "glue-sniffing" and "off their meds" offensive insults because people like that are usually proven wrong and usually resorting to character attacks because the facts go against them.
The community could use less of the character attacking cover ups like the below and more of the truth tellers like the private investigator expose.
Truth is, in the interests of $Blackstone Condo Conversion$, the State Police and Feds with bad StuyTown tenants did really bad things to harm some really good tenants.
SHUT UP AND EAT YOUR WORDS December 24, 2018 at 4:30 PM
Anonymous said...
"Stuyvesant Town Peter Cooper Village ground was sup[posed to break 2013 - 2016 but Garodnick, TA Board, Bloomberg failed to do that and Garodnick, TA Board with Deblasio failed their many attempts after that to fulfill Rob Speyers accusations of tenants gaming the system and Garodnick's famous litigation set up to blame the offending tenant gaming the system for the abuse from Rob Speyer of all the tenants. This NY Times article so carefully worded to protect and defend Rob Speyer's cleansing the residency and blaming one bad apple tenant for causing all of the harm to the entire community."
Give dates please, so that we can look this up in the NYT and see that you aren't doing some glue-sniffing. STR, why do you allow this kind of thing to be published on your blog? It sounds like somebody is off their meds.
December 24, 2018 at 4:30 PM
I have known this for a long time. Subsidized next door neighbors have been in 3500 plus apartment three years already while others have moved after a year. Part of a church group, no jobs, visited by public assistance.
Was walking around in shorts three weeks ago. Now minimal heat. Problem is escalating.
"It would not surprise me if people have already contracted pneumonia from lack of heat. It cannot be proven in the elderly."
They are trying to kill the elderly. They have the Death Team on high alert.
I’d be curious to hear what the TA has to say about this woman, and her LinkedIn claims as an employee of the current management company of this property. I know two tenants on my floor who do AirBnB a few times a year, and management has not done a thing about them, so I doubt this woman’s claims to be true (kind of like Rick’s 8,000 dog lanyard stop number).
I’m not going to turn these people in, because that is not my job, it’s management’s.
If they have someone rooting out AirbnBs and criminals, what is wrong with that? If you are not using your apartment as an AirbnB or dealing drugs, you have nothing to fear.
I don't believe that they are doing any such thing though, because this place is full of illegal hotels and I wouldn't be surprised if there was drug activity, too. Remember Sulfuric Acid Boy? His apartment was probably a meth factory and they didn't know (or maybe care) what he and his pals were up to. This is not your old Mother Met Stuy anymore; this is an overpriced mixed-use (very mixed) slum with all kinds of shit going down and law enforcement is either banned or law enforcement gives Management a pass. We have NO protection here and plenty that we need protection from.
Nobody cares!
"They go by the book when they only have to give you 68 degrees in the evening. They got it down to a science. Glad I'm not paying $4500/month around here. SUCKERS!!!"
The people paying "$4500/month" here are probably transient students crammed into apartments. They will leave this open sewer in a year or two and hopefully regain some self respect. It's people like us who really are the suckers because we stay due to our "great deal" as real R/S tenants. Don't be so smug. Have some appropriate shame for spending your life in this dump: at any price.
We need to worry about the heat, not this other crap right now.
WHAT TA?
STR, why do you allow these long-winded, off-the-wall conspiracy-theory posts? They have no back-up; they don't include any links to the supposed NYT articles or anything else for that matter. They seem to have been written by someone (or may more than one) nutter who has a wild imagination. They are in no way helpful with regard to the current problems we are facing from the Black$tone ghouls and we all are aware that Speyer was a dirtbag and a total crook. He no doubt had a lot of help from Bloomberg and other billionaire crooks, but that is history and we are now being slowly killed by a new batch of satanic billionaire crooks. Thank you.
The TA is not answering any questions posed about heat. I refuse to pay dues until they do something about this.
>>STR, why do you allow these long-winded, off-the-wall conspiracy-theory posts?<<
I checked the recent one and it seemed verified with LinkedIn posts. Which posts are you referring to?
"We need to worry about the heat, not this other crap right now."
Agreed. We need to get the word out to the press and prospective renters that the Blackhole Policy is absolutely minimal heat. They are despicable poor excuses for human beings.
Heat, heat, heat...
I want some heat.
Where is the Tenants Association?
Aren't they supposed to advocate for us?
SILENCE.
Deafening SILENCE.
I don't care. Every year I put on my oven when its cold, and I'm nice and toasty. Later for that. And I have control over that. In the Summmer, cold air blasts at 60 degrees. And I also have control over that. I DON'T CARE!!!!
That's because the TA does not exist anymore. When are all you people going to understand that. The 'good old day's are gone forever.
I pay a low rent and CALL FOR EVERYTHING!
I do care. Heat is a basic necessity and should be provided. Putting on the oven or even space heaters are not an option
That is why I stopped paying dues
I walk into my office. The heat is on. Restaurants are comfortable. I went into Target today and it was toasty. My apartment was comfortable for one or two hours today when heat was on. Now it is going off and I will be cold again. This is despicable.
@3:40 PM: most of the low rent people are seniors and they are the ones Blackstone is trying to exterminate.
That is unfortunately true.
The long winded comments are about the cause of the lack of quality of life problems. Recall in 2016 the feds, SDNY subpoenaed the DHCR records. What happened to that investigation?
Our quality of life stinks because the officials are not doing their jobs. But the city council just passed of introduced laws for better tenant protections including from DOB, DHCR, etc.
It seems the long winded comments are saying that 1) tenants are on their own 2) city, state and feds were working with TA and management against tenants 3) who is left to care about our heat? 4) who is left to care about us?
The point is the TA is a lost cause. They do nothing for us and have not for years.
For heat problems, do we call 311? Have we done that every day there is not heat? Why not?
Why aren't we demanding the system do its job and work for us, public service?
Dear Senator Hoylman
You want my vote - then I want heat now. No heat - No vote. Ever again.
Love
StuyTown
4:55 pm, I agree. I will vote anybody going AGAINST current incumbents because they do NOTHING for us. I am sick of huddling in a cold apartment because we are deliberately being brought down to the level of a tenement slum. The TA doesn't care and our elected representatives don't care. Blackstone is denying us heat in an effort to save a few pennies even though we have to use ovens and space heaters to keep warm. There is bound to be Illness and, probably, death as a result of this. This is calculated misery for tenants. We are only one step up from the unfortunate people who live in Slumlord De Blasio's NYCHA apartments.
I would like to wish Rick Hayduk and his family a happy and healthy new year. I would like to, but I cannot because he is the one implementing this misery. Vile, heartless man. When the first senior or baby dies as the result of this deprivation of heat I trust you will be very happy and declare "mission accomplished" as you send in the death team.
No heat, then none of the local politicians get my vote either.
It's people like us who really are the suckers because we stay due to our "great deal" as real R/S tenants. Don't be so smug. Have some appropriate shame for spending your life in this dump: at any price.
Shame on us who pay lower rents and like whores we endure this. Now we heard our building - haNe - has bedbugs and a real live working brothel.
6:18 pm - I think Mr Hayduk is probably home in Florida for the Holidays and missing all this controversy. I think he's very much a family man. I wonder if his apartment (here) is 68 degrees? Would be a shock to the system after Florida! Maybe he'll take pity on us!
The Tenants Association should truly hang their heads in shame.
They do NOTHING for the tenants.
They pander for dues like a trollop leaning against a light pole yet they provide NOTHING.
Susan Steinberg and your crew...truly vile.
DEVOID OF ETHICS.
Instead of, "Hey, sailor, want to have a good time" we get JUST CALL RICK!
PATHETIC.
@6:18 pm, Rick doesn't do these horrible things, Blackstone does. He probably has sparse heat in his apt.
***1975 NYC GARBAGE STRIKE***
There are a wide variety of illness, some life threatening, that are a result of lack of proper heat.
Sick building syndrome causes are frequently pinned down to flaws in the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. The WHO has classified the reported symptoms into broad categories, including: mucous membrane irritation (eye, nose, and throat irritation), neurotoxic effects (headaches, fatigue, and irritability), asthma and asthma-like symptoms (chest tightness and wheezing), skin dryness and irritation, gastrointestinal complaints and more.
*pneumonia
*flu
*injury or death due to fire or toxins emoted my space heaters
These issues are EXTREMELY DANGEROUS TO OUR CHILDREN AND ELDERLY. We all know that some person is monitoring this site for Stuy. WHY DONT YOU EARN YOUR MONEY AND HELP US SURVIVE THIS WINTER?!?
We are the suffering man while a few are reaping the rewards of less heat by lining their pockets. I bet the management has heat in the offices and their apt.
Deplorable
"It would not surprise me if people have already contracted pneumonia from lack of heat. It cannot be proven in the elderly."
I have had bronchial pneumonia and had to go stay with a relative because my apartment was so cold. When I told them at the hospital about the heat here, they said I should file a complaint with the Board of Health. I am a senior, but in very good health generally. This cold nasty place is extremely dangerous for seniors and the very young. And anybody with an impaired immune system, really. They always want to send someone up to your apartment to check the heat, like they are dealing with mentally defective people. I don't want one of their people in my apartment when I am sick. I don't know what viruses and bacterial he will bring in that might polish me off! Also, I could make the worker sick because I was highly infectious for a while.
This is deliberate, calculated mistreatment of tenants and if our so-called TA and politicians don't do something about it they should just go away and stay away.
"Rick says that Blackstone can't afford heat until everyone starts paying more in rent.
December 27, 2018 at 5:34 AM"
Are you telling the truth? I find it hard to believe that he would come right out and say a thing like that.
Put your oven on. Works wonders!
Rick's on his boat in the Bahamas right now. Think he cares?
When they send someone up about the heat , they send them after it turns on briefly so the readings will be legitimate. Then they blame the windows. Liars. Last night I had more heat than the previous night, so it shows that they can turn it up when they want to.
Anonymous said...
STR, why do you allow these long-winded, off-the-wall conspiracy-theory posts? They have no back-up; they don't include any links to the supposed NYT articles or anything else for that matter. They seem to have been written by someone (or may more than one) nutter who has a wild imagination. They are in no way helpful with regard to the current problems we are facing from the Black$tone ghouls and we all are aware that Speyer was a dirtbag and a total crook. He no doubt had a lot of help from Bloomberg and other billionaire crooks, but that is history and we are now being slowly killed by a new batch of satanic billionaire crooks. Thank you.
December 27, 2018 at 12:25 PM
The "satanic billionaire crooks" and "ghouls" you claim are in a conspiracy to "slowly kill" you are people. It appears yours is the imagination is the one that is wild or you are trying to cover up that that TA worked with the State Police, the Federal Authorities FBI running operations on StuyTown campus against rent stabilized New Yorker StuyTown tenants.
The NY Times article link was supplied by a couple of commentors.
The private investigator LinkedIn resume link was provided.
1 + 1 = 2
1
The FBI, the State Police, Dan Garodnick, Rob Speyer, Larry Fink, Michael Novogratz, Steve Schwarzman, Daniel Fournier, John Marsh and staff at their respective organizations plus third party contractors, with others, ran extreme force of operations against tenants or a tenant.
+
1
StuyTown tenants quality of life current state includes No Heat, increase in overall crime, increase in violent crimes against women, increase in suicide rate, noise pollution, increase in construction by MTA who is vested interest in condo/coop/hotel development, increase in illegal hotel traffic, increase in transient population replacing permanent community
=
2
All of the above mentioned know quality of life is ruined in Stuyvesant Town and they are not lifting a finger in any of the city, state, federal tenant aid organizations to stop it including the tenant aid organization the former president of the StuyTown TA is on.
The tenant aid organizations have achieved nothing for tenants in 20 years. Some of them even pretend to be on the side of tenants but are more anti-tenant then the developers like Legal Aid Society. Steer clear of Legal Aid Society.
From 2004 to March 31, 2014 Steven Banks was President. Now he is a failing deBlasio Commissioner. Not one landlord was held accountable for harassment in past 20 years including under watch of Banks. Legal Aid Society is filled with lawyers whose firms work for the real estate developers.
1 + 1 = 2
Bottomline no city, state or federal authority or organization will hold Blackstone accountable and that is why we have no quality of life or basic necessity as heat.
1 + 1 = 2
1. Corrupt Tenant Association in bed with real estate developers
https://town-village.com/2016/12/01/letters-to-the-editor-dec-1-2/
+
1. Corrupt politicians in bed with real estate developers
=
2 No one is serving the public; no one is protecting the rights of tenants; No one cares the quality of life is poor and /or they are causing it to be poor on purpose so they can develop the cleared out property.
Deal with the facts.
Don't engage with name calling and character attacks used by people covering up crimes using slander like "ghouls" "dirtbag" "nutter" "satanic billionaire crooks"
This is a clear example of character attacking by someone trying to cover up the facts:
"STR, why do you allow these long-winded, off-the-wall conspiracy-theory posts? They have no back-up; they don't include any links to the supposed NYT articles or anything else for that matter. They seem to have been written by someone (or may more than one) nutter who has a wild imagination. They are in no way helpful with regard to the current problems we are facing from the Black$tone ghouls and we all are aware that Speyer was a dirtbag and a total crook. He no doubt had a lot of help from Bloomberg and other billionaire crooks, but that is history and we are now being slowly killed by a new batch of satanic billionaire crooks. Thank you."
Agree 100 percent. Will not be voting for any of them if they continue to ignore this heat problem
It is the company. He is their frontman.
Putting the oven on for heat is extremely dangerous and extremely stupid. The oven gives off toxic fumes if the door is left open and/or there is nothing cooking in it. Don't give out dangerous information. Grow up.
An oven sucks the oxygen out of the air.
The TA has for all intents and purposes ceased to exist except to monitor the Facebook groups and to hold the very occasional meeting which is usually primarily devoted to long-winded speeches by politicians.And if you think you can run against the incumbent board, think again. A number of years ago they changed the election rules, backed up by their buddies at Paul Weiss, which make it virtually impossible for anyone other than an incumbent or another friend of the board to win an election. By doing so the board has essentially dug its own grave as many former members (including me ) no longer pay dues
These slumlords are really nickel and diming this heat. My place of work and restaurant I ate in both were overheated. No cut even though it is 50 degrees. This is a raw 50 degrees. These Blackstone bloodsuckers deprive us of heat whenever they can. When will we get help from either the useless TA or the local pols who don’t seem to care.
A large percentage of apartments here are subsidized by NYU or the City. no one is denying this, correct? It's public information--NYU states they have subsidized apartments "in the village" for their students. We currently have some of these subsidized people above us--lazy morons who barely work, hire a nanny and their mother to come help them, even though none of them work, they never leave their apartment, and they spend their days and nights running up and down the hallway. it is pathetic. Can we get a higher class of people here?
Can we do anything about these subsidies? How about we form our own tenants association? was there any interest in that? I for one am interested.It is clear the current one is in bed with Blackstone. this is not a conspiracy theory, I only say this because it is obvious from their lack of action on any front that they are working for Blackstone.
also a note in case others have not discovered this--Blackstone doesnt care much about their subsidized renters--they put them all in the same line as the rent stabilized apartments. that way they have all the people paying low price in the same apartment line. they ignore all complaints from these apartment lines. Have at it folks--feel free to do whatever is necessary to get rid of a nasty neighbor who refuses to put down carpets. no one will intervene.
This has become a true slum—-minimal heat, subsidized apartments, garbage in the loops.
An introduction to who our landlord is and why whining about heat will not cure the problem
Stephen "Steve" Schwarzman - in very close, very tight business with Kushner and Russia
Kushner slumlord tactics same as Schwarzman
https://whowhatwhy.org/2018/03/28/trump-kushner-russia-and-the-blackstone-mystery/
Has anyone else noticed that in spite of all the commenting on this blog and on the TA facebook about the lack of heat, especially the recent deliberate and significant cutback of heat, T&V has not said a word. That little rag is completely controlled by Management - even more so than the TA.
Bill DeBlasio deliberately gave this community away to a known slumlord Kushner business partner Steve Svhwarzman. Pathetic and Corrupt Bill DeBlasio's love for slumlord Jared Kushner is publicly known.
“About the person of Jared Kushner — I respect him a lot,” he said in early January. "I’ve known him for years and find him to be a very reasonable person," de Blasio said of the young real estate developer and former owner of the New York Observer.
“He’s certainly someone I’ve been talking to over these last weeks. He’s someone I intend to stay in touch with on behalf of the people of New York City. He’s someone who really cares about New York City and is someone that would be very helpful to us. So I’m certainly pleased he’ll be in that role,” de Blasio said. “And I can say clearly compared to many other people who've been named to other positions, I find him to be a lot more reasonable and a lot more moderate.”
https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/2017/11/21/de-blasio-and-his-administration-had-a-warm-relationship-with-kushner-emails-show-121665
Nasty neighbors
Nasty landlord
Bill DeBlasio, Steve Schwarzman, Jared Kushner ruined the lower east side continuing convicted corrupt Shelly Silvers 30 year plan.
We can only hope that corrupt Bill, Steve and Jared will rejoin their pal Shelly in prison.
Everything Steve Schwarzman is, so to his employees. That is the Blackstone company culture.
I have to step in and periodically state that I don't consider Stuy Town a real slum. Lot of things wrong with it, but not a slum.
Why is the TA aligned with management/ what are they afraid of?
The simple solution to ALL problems here in Stuyvesant Town and, in fact, worldwide suggested by our esteemed and valued Tenants Association:
Be it noisy neighbors, dog shit on the paths or in the stairwells, no carpeting, no heat, garbage on the Oval, brown water coming out of the faucets, poverty, pestilence, wars, unemployment, political discord, man's inhumanity to man, transit difficulties, screaming bros at all hours of the night....
The simple solution is to all this is promulgated by President Susan Steinberg of the Tenants Association:
JUST CALL RICK! JUST CALL RICK! JUST CALL RICK!
Now why didn't I think of that?
A Nobel Prize nominee perhaps?
STR . Since they cut my heat down I would have to classify it as such. Minimal heat for hours on end is a slum like condition. Sorry to disagree.
https://whowhatwhy.org/2018/03/28/trump-kushner-russia-and-the-blackstone-mystery/
The feds are going after Schwarzman
Minimal or no heat are definitely characteristic of slums in my book.
All the links in one place so those covering up the atrocities by the Peter Cooper Village Stuyvesant Town Tenant Association have to face the truth and stop lying to this community
May 2008 NY Times article Garodnick, Speyer, Harrased Tenants three law firms plus privaate investigators hired to clear out tenants simultaneously acknowledging innocent tenants getting harmed, damaged
December 2016 PCV ST Tenant Association President admitting and professing closeness and gratitude for working with the property management naming nearly every department head
Linked In resume credentials of private investigator who worked for law firm then in-house hired by BLACKSTONE after BLACKSTONE took over the property with credentials citing working in StuyTown with State Police (Attorney General and State Police Department) and Federal Authorities (FBI under Diego Rodriguez)
Investigator StuyTown February 2016 – September 2018
In-House Investigator Sirotkin Varacalli & Hamra, LLP September 2015 – February 2016
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/27/nyregion/27stuyvesant.html
https://town-village.com/2016/12/01/letters-to-the-editor-dec-1-2/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/karenzeilingold
https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2016/06/14/simon-wiesenthal-center-funds/
Blackstone paid the private investigator
Who paid the police? Garodnick, The City Council and the PCV ST Tenant Association
https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2016/06/14/simon-wiesenthal-center-funds/
Millions of dollars on manpower with full force of corporations, State and Federal authorities attacking rent stabilized middle class tenant
That rag is a management tool now.
"Whining" about the heat is quite a statement. Do you really think it is "whining," or demanding a life-sustaining element to be supplied to you, and for which, incidentally, you are paying?
Moving on . . . I may well do as I wrote as in "put your money where your mouth is."
Meaning: after many conversations with "Management" employees and some truly and surprisingly lovely talks with those who MIGHT be able to send us heat ("MIGHT" because those in higher positions in Blackstone may well be ORDERING their Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper employees to cut heat OR ELSE THEY WILL BE FIRED - don't know, but suspect this is the case),
There Still is Either No Heat for Perhaps Multiple Consecutive Days, or So Little Heat, It is Equivalent to No Heat . . .
I may be going to my bank to open an account in which to deposit rent monies each month until necessary and sufficient heat is supplied.
This, of course, will happen after I enter my EXTREMELY COLD BATHROOM to shower and dress. The drying off and dressing is probably going to be while I am SHIVERING. Yet, the thought of the bank and the letters to various Blackstone employees explaining that my rent money is now where my heat is might warm me a bit.
Whaddya think?
Oh, yes, P.S.: Tim Collins, esteemed attorney for the TA, never phoned me. Whadday think? Long holiday? Really???
STAND UP AND FIGHT
Am still waiting for a response from Peter Stuyvesant as to what they intend to do about all of the heat complaints. Doubt that we will get one. Their letters requesting dues payments go right in the garbage.
Are the bugs from Hane?
Totally not surprised that the TA lawyer never contacted you. They intend to do nothing and get snarky when someone calls them out.
Where are all the cheerleaders on the TA site now that the heat complaints are increasing. Could they be cold?
I don't have the figures but a landlord saves money when he/she doesn't provide heat. There are city rules, too, but they do not take into account the reality of people's situation. Here in Stuy Town some tenants get too much heat, some not so much. The temp monitor is nonsense. My apartment is just okay most times, but I would never say that it is "toasty warm" during the winter months. Many times the pipes are cold when they should not be.
Also... Once again, when I am passing by, I hear the staccato slamming of pucks in our "Ice" playground. This should not be allowed in the midst of a residential community, but there it is. Nice for hockey players, not so nice for the residents who hear this noise.
Management fails big-time here, but they don't care.
Also failing: Our local politicians, who have not even uttered a word of protest.
Also... On another resident blog, a member has stated that most cyclists obey the laws of the city. This is WRONG. I have seen many, many times, cyclists passing through a red light on First Avenue in the smaller cross-streets.
You are fortunate STR that your heat situation is OK. Mine was too up until a few weeks ago. Now I can really sympathize with those who have been deprived of heat for so long. I have had heat now for two hours and it is like heaven. Am dreading when it goes off as it inevitably will. As for city requirements, they are on the edge. When the engineer came up after the heat was on fifteen minutes or so, my bedroom was just at regulation. Had he come up earlier it would likely have been below. We must all record and call the health department when the heat dips below appropriate levels. As for Councilman Powers and the rest, there has been silence.
I should mention that many times I will put on an extra shirt in my apartment to ward off the cold.
Stand Up and Fight there are lots of other tenant lawyers out there. If you need a starting point to find one, contact the Urban Justice Center. (646) 602-5600
No Fu*kin' HEAT!
Enough already.
PIGSTUYTOWN PUKES.
"This has become a true slum—-minimal heat, subsidized apartments, garbage in the loops."
You are absolutely right. We are most definitely living in a slum and I think it will get worse.
"Councilman Powers and the rest, there has been silence."
Don't expect much from that guy. He is in deep with the worst of the worst of the Real Estate industry. Just look at what a borderline thug he was during his election. He was no doubt being bankrolled by those thugs and was afraid to let them down. He doesn't work for us, make no mistake about that.
Somebody on the TA Facebook was reminded by the TA that they need dues in order to fight MCIs, etc. When the poster asked why the TA never has opened its books .... Radio Silence.
Whining
Demanding
Rent Strike
No Heat
No Rent
TA lawyers on the Board and their hired outside counsel not only failed this community they betrayed this community and betrayed their oath.
Those articles are amazing. Blackstone Steve Schwarzman is a crooked criminal business.
You dont care about the overcharges most of us have. You want us to help you with heat , you help out for overcharges.
They are always silent when confronted
I had three hours of heat this morning. Now it is freezing in here. Just called and told them I don’t want any engineers coming up, just put on the heat. I’ve had it.
Just went on the 311 site and they say that besides recording temperatures, your elected officials can help. Ha, that is a joke. Hear that Powers, Hoylman and Epstein!
Exactly right. They can organize a fight against this heating situation. I am sure they could get a class action suit going.
You cannot withhold rent unless you have legal advice. Unfortunately many have inadequate heat here and do not complain, call 311 or do anything about it.
@8:58 AM: thank you very much for the links. I have a hard time with the NYT search engine when it comes looking for articles within any particular time frame. It never seems to work for me , but just resets itself!
Just a note (again and again): This is not a place to vent on national politics. I realize that some local figures are also national, but I can tell when a comment strays too much and damns those on the national stage. There are many, many other places where one can vent. Thanks!
NO HEAT!
When I call Resident Services, whomever answers the phone seems to read from a written script:
"I'll notify the engineers and they will look into it.
Shall I send someone to your apartment to check? Shall I bring a thermometer?"
My response: "I don't want a thermometer. I just want some fu*kin' heat."
CLICK.
Maybe I should JUST CALL RICK.
He can walk on water according to the Tenants Association.
The silence from the cheerleaders is deafening! Even the ole "if you lived in the country" dame is quiet. Maybe they're all away for the Holidays? Maybe they don't want to "stoop to the level" of the whiners and complainers who they claim to despise and love to bully. Maybe they're afraid of this unscrupulous management?
I think we should all contact the press and media outlets and let them know how Blackstone is treating us.
"Just a note (again and again): This is not a place to vent on national politics. I realize that some local figures are also national, but I can tell when a comment strays too much and damns those on the national stage. There are many, many other places where one can vent. Thanks!"
You must admit, STR, that getting the truth out of those people in the office is like dealing with the WH Press Office!
"You cannot withhold heat unless you have legal advice."
Sure. Absolutely. Simon Says, Mommy Says, Big Brother Says, Daddy will paddle you, Mommy will send you to bed without supper.
Alexis De Toqueville: 'American people always get precisely the government that they deserve.'
And the landlord they deserve. Cringe, bow, complain but not too loudly and take your whipping.
When people act in concert, joined together to end their common misery, change is the result.
Who the hell do you think makes the "law," enforces the "law" and benefits from it? So many complain about our "representatives" in local government. THEIR law?
I would say, "just sit still and take the abuse," but I will be more situation appropriate: "just sit there and shiver."
Powers “the community man,” campaigned on his roots to this specific community. He grew up here and his family still lives here. He promised, with his in your face campaigning, to fight for the tenants of this property.
Like his predecessor Garodnick, he has left us with nothing more than a whimper. He should be ashamed to show his face around here, but like Steinberg, they think they are loved by all.
I was one of the original batch of children in Stuy Town circa 1947 to 1955 or so.
My mother told me years later that her boss had written her a strong letter of recommendation for an apt. And there was mention of “key money” paid.
When I asked as a ten year old what key money was she said “ a bribe.”
P..S. There was always plenty of heat.
The Cheerleaders are back to scold someone who questioned the use of the word "campus" when describing the property. They're always lurking, waiting to attack.
What overcharges? Everybody has different rent. No one can help another tenant on rent charges. You have to help yourself.
Anonymous said...
Powers “the community man,” campaigned on his roots to this specific community. He grew up here and his family still lives here. He promised, with his in your face campaigning, to fight for the tenants of this property.
Like his predecessor Garodnick, he has left us with nothing more than a whimper. He should be ashamed to show his face around here, but like Steinberg, they think they are loved by all.
December 29, 2018 at 8:38 PM
Or they are laying low as instructed while covering up the years they followed Garodnik's lead. He is in the NY Times article at the onset of Rob Speyer's assault on the community; Garodnick is there in the middle of the onslaught which we now know started with three law firms and a private dick then added more law firms and private dicks including the private dick who (falsely) brags of her criminal conquests during the assault on the community; and Garodnick is there in the end as Marcia Kramer reports on the scandal breaking, Garodnick and his city council pals pull the city council funding of "police costs" under the guise of "sensitivity training" (albeit duplicative) at the Simon Weisenthal Center.
The corruption, the creepiness of the crimes is going to be exposed
Garodnick will be front and center of the line up. Powers and his lobbying clients will be there too.
That whole “campus” conversation is inane. One of the old dears was upset by that phrase. Anything to feel heard. It is tragic they way we marginalize the elderly. Respect your elders and listen to them. You may learn something. The owners of this place are trying to run out the aged and infirmed....just awful
Conversation overheard between two obviously NYU students:
"Oh, my dorm is at Stuy Town.
It's pretty nice except there are so many cranky, old people there.
One of them had the nerve to knock at my door and ask me to lower the music.
Geez, it was only midnight on a Friday night.
What is this? An old age home?
And the lady below me complained about the noise from my high heels.
F-her.
I'm not spending money on carpets.
I'm only going to be here for a year.
Screw these old farts.
They should only hurry up and die."
NICE, huh?
REAL NICE.
There are no overcharges. That is an old rumor.
The implications of New York State Police, New York Attorney General Investigators, and Federal Agents FBI running operations on a college campus may have different rules and guidelines, processes and procedures then running ops on an adult residential complex. Maybe that is why the TA is all shady and sensitive when anyone calls it like it is, a campus. Even the universities call it a campus. We have campus security, campus SUNY guidelines for security, thousands of dorms, for all intents and purposes this is a campus. The feds and state police ran ops on a college campus and that needs to be reported to parents of the college kids and included in the crime statistics that colleges are required to report in their safety reports for parents.
A federal operation is no small joke and is about more than AIRBNB hotels.
NYU owes parents as do all the universities on the serious crimes this private investigator lists including the drugs and larceny and on what the operations were really about.
This is a big deal that the TA cannot just sweep under the rug no matter how slick and slippery their PR guy Rick is.
8 48 no they're pushing out he families who are trying to raise young children here. Think about others for once in your life.
overcharges are original apartment last month one price, added a new fridge and ac and now the same apartment this month is 5 times the price. Um, that's an overcharge and you all know it's bullshit. Not to mention sttill under J52!
Garodnick did nothing for this community in his last term and it now appears that Powers will follow in his footsteps. He talked a good game in the beginning but has done nothing to assist with this terrible heat situation.
I think it's time we aired our suffering in the press. Anybody got any ideas or any contacts?
Maybe the poor dears are cold too. Aw.
I saw no cheerleaders during the campus thread. It was a dumb conversation but there’s no need to create drama where there was none.
No overcharges? Hello Rick!is here.
Actually there was one .
That’s is what the TA should be doing and is not. There is no organization here to help us. Some tenants do not even report heat issues. A lot of talk but individuals are afraid I guess.
@8:48 AM: that is a VERY condescending comment! Very disrespectful.
I didn’t see any cheerleaders on the campus thread either. However, this is not a college campus, not officially anyway, so using that word is likely to rile people up. The number of spoiled brat students living here is a very sore topic and has created big problems for lots of their neighbors. All the students belong in dorms somewhere - not here - where their typical, immature college behavior won’t bother any non-students.
12:35 PM, if that conversation really took place, those two young "ladies" are going to find it very hard when they go out into the real world and find that their cavalier attitude gets them nowhere. Might get them a smack in the kisser if they are not careful who they treat with such disdain, but they may need to adjust their attitude if they want to live in the real world of adults who work, pay taxes and need sleep. Nasty little bitches!
I wonder if the aforementioned investigations, etc., extended to the meth factory and the suicide by sulfuric acid. Does anyone know what happened about the lawsuit that the tenants at 451 were bringing against Blackstone, NYU, et al.?
All happening on your watch, Rick. Increase in suicides, crimes against women, refusal to provide heat and general filth and squalor on the property (e.g., disgusting mattresses). Let's not forget the piggyback robberies and general decline in the QOL that we are all enduring.
Time for you to move on, no?
The city, the state, the feds, the tenant association, the landlord blackstone don't want more than 15% of the apartments to be occupied by rent stabilized tenants. that is why they were running operations against rent stabilized tenants. one of them is a supplier of office supplies and printer ink contracts with stuytown. something shady going on there.
Does anybody have any contacts in the press or media who might find an article about Blackstone's deliberate withholding of heat an item of interest?
no heat this morning!
pipes ice cold!
unreal!
I don't want an "engineer" to come in my apartment.
I just want some HEAT!
FREEZING!!!!
What's with all the helicopters? Noise all day and night. Anyone have any info?
“Leave people happier than you found them.”
I wonder how many hours around a conference room table our “management” spent coming up with that ridiculous slogan for workers shirts. Things are so ass-backwards in this place, it’s almost comical at this point.
Must be nice, as he withholds heat from tens of thousands of tenants in PCVST. Wouldn’t be surprised if Powers and Garodnick were at this shindig!
https://pagesix.com/2018/12/31/blackstone-ceo-celebrates-mit-donation-with-robot-themed-party/?utm_campaign=iosapp&utm_source=pasteboard_app
Many tenants did not get rent bills in a timely manner this month. Still have not received mine. When I called today the rep said that they were sent out on the 20th. I paid my rent at the office today and many people are coming in about the bill. They are telling people they can wait but I do not trust them .As for the heart situation it is deplorable. My pipes have been cold all day so far. Seems that if it is over 40 degrees they do not give adequate heat. Resident Services Office was warm as toast. I really am starting to think that they are trying to harass the RS tenants out.
Two robberies in the oval this morning. Way to go Rick! Crime is the worst I remember on this property, and there is nobody to blame except Rick and Blackstone.
At this point, at the very end of a particularly hard, sad, unhealthful, and misery filled year for many of us in Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, I am more than a little convinced that:
Whether or not some employees, including those in "Management" and "Security" and "Legal" may or may not be nasty and even sadistic individuals, the hell they are imposing and deepening and widening
IS NOT THEIR DECISION.
I experienced something identical when I worked in a huge machine at a time of planned destruction. Arrogant, predatory, emotionally disturbed people living thousands of miles away, in that case, decided to highjack one of the basic underpinnings of life in this country. The details don't matter.
What matters is that I experienced the destruction of my own career and I watched hundreds and hundreds of my colleagues experience similar destruction. Many of them became seriously and even terminally physically ill; one or two of them ended up homeless; too many lost families. Nearly all suffered permanent psychological and emotional damage. Many more than one of them were deliberately incarcerated on false charges and left in a particularly frightening city jail over weekends to scare the hell out of them and other would-be protesters.
Entire neighborhoods were hurt. It is still going on.
The dynamics were identical to what is happening here, as were the tactics.
People were turned against each other. People were made to choose between jobs/paychecks/health care for themselves and their families or their colleagues and friends. "If I don't hurt you, my boss will hurt me."
"If I don't fire you, my boss will fire me."
People in previously benign and even helpful and constructive administrative positions were forced into becoming predators and tormentors of their colleagues. If they said "NO" to the demand to torment and help fire many targeted individuals, they themselves were targeted and tormented. And ultimately fired or hounded out of their professions and careers.
(Continued in Part 2)
(Part 2 regarding WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE MISERY HERE):
Most previously kind and decent people were turned into nightmares who hunted their underlings. Few people said, "I won't do it" when it was demanded that they use appallingly vicious and malicious and dishonest tactics to hound and hurt their colleagues.
I truly believe something very similar is going on here. There are several people I know in "Management," and many more in "Security," and they engage in either outright injurious behaviors, or the kind of passive behaviors which result in much misery. There are others whom I know who work in other capacities here in Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village who seem to be in the same quandary: trapped.
I don't think anyone here, with a couple of exceptions (probably principally in "Legal" - maybe) is doing any of this to us independently. I think some of the details are thought up by some particularly unintelligent people, yes.
But I am pretty well persuaded that the overarching plan, and the growing and worsening destruction of safety, peace, quiet, services, land, trees, healthful conditions, cleanliness, legal protections, buildings, and so on:
COMES FROM "THE TOP," as some would phrase it.
It seems clear to me that Rick, as well as other people who SEEM to have the ability to do the right thing DO NOT IN FACT have the ability to do the right thing if they want to stay part of the employed population.
This newest, and probably most dangerous-to-life-and-health initiative of heat deprivation has caused me tremendous grief and worry and anger over the last 14 days. Never in my many decades here have I endured sustained denial of heat. Until beginning on December 17, 2018.
I have registered dozens of complaints, had engineers here, and spoken to some of those in positions of seeming "power" in long conversations face-to-face.
I don't believe that anything short of a combination of united legal action and media coverage will change this.
BECAUSE: I do not believe that Rick Hayduk or ANYONE WORKING HERE can supply the heat anymore without being fired for doing it. Period.
Do you remember? Last year, our own STR wrote that he had overheard some "suits" as they walked around the Oval. They were exclaiming over the possibilities of further and more injurious exploitation as they crowed about what a RESOURCE the Oval was.
It is the twisted examples of human avarice and moral bankruptcy who are doing this to us.
I continue to believe that we can STAND UP AND FIGHT. We need to understand who the enemy is, and who the enemy thrusts
ULTIMATELY, THIS IS THE STERLING EXAMPLE OF HUMAN SPLENDOR AND MORAL RECTITUDE RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR SUFFERING:
Blackstone CEO celebrates MIT donation with robot-themed party
By Page Six Team
(https://pagesix.com/2018/12/31/blackstone-ceo-celebrates-mit-donation-with-robot-themed-party/)
December 31, 2018 | 9:40am
Private equity titan Stephen Schwarzman celebrated his $350 million donation to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study artificial intelligence with a robot-themed party at his prestigious Park Avenue pad.
The Blackstone billionaire, a close adviser to President Donald Trump, has given a huge anchor donation to MIT for a new college to harness and understand the power of AI, which will ultimately be backed by $1 billion in funding.
The very sober-sounding MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing, announced in October, will create 50 new faculty positions and fellowships for multiple graduate students beginning next fall.
So what better way to celebrate a successful 2018 and the holidays than with a robot-themed bacchanalian bash? Stephen and wife Christine lit up their 740 Park Ave. pad in late December with laser-flashing, futuristic, dancing power robots firing dry ice from dual machine guns, body-painted bots, and female dancers writhing in tight silver bodysuits with disco balls on their heads.
Despite a strict social-media ban, guests including Paris and Nicky Hilton were seen in a few posts dancing wildly with the robots raining down a fog of dry ice, while priceless paintings by Dali and Modigliani from the Schwarzmans’ stunning art collection could be viewed in the background, amid other flashing neon decor. Guests included a host of Wall Street bigwigs, and many of the Schwarzmans’ society friends, one insider said, adding that Steve “is so excited about AI. It is the future, and he wanted to share that with his guests in a fun way.”
It is not clear if any of the MIT professors made it to the party, but there were plenty of others on Instagram commenting that the bash was “bananas.” Announcing his MIT donation, Schwarzman, 71, worth an estimated $13.8 billion, had said, “There is no more important opportunity or challenge facing our nation than to responsibly harness the power of artificial intelligence.” His spokesperson declined to comment.
Happy New Year, STR!
Good health, peace of mind, only the best in 2019!
God Bless!
Thank you! We all need health, etc!
>>Two robberies in the oval this morning.<<
Attempted, and right near the "manned" guardbooth at the Oval, unmanned at this time, of course. It doesn't get more flagrant than this.
And, sorry, Rick, but you are giving the BS once again in response.
Advice: By this time, there have to be some firings or removals. This place is the worst I have seen.
We need HEAT for health.
"The city, the state, the feds, the tenant association, the landlord blackstone don't want more than 15% of the apartments to be occupied by rent stabilized tenants. that is why they were running operations against rent stabilized tenants. one of them is a supplier of office supplies and printer ink contracts with stuytown. something shady going on there."
Please clarify the reference to a supplier of office supplies, etc. Is that person a RS tenant or colluding against the RS tenants. Your post is rather ambiguous.
STR, maybe you could require posters provide a little back-up to their outrageous claims and assertions? Thank you.
Community update flyer asks people to pickup their dog's shit after it snows. That should take care of that problem.
STAND UP AND FIGHT: You write a lot and your posts become wearisome. Maybe if you provided some identifying facts about the monstrous evil you experienced, we (or I) could believe you are not just a crank. Sorry, STR, but this blog is really getting crazy.
Firings and removals will not address the situation. As long as we are owned by Blackstone, it will continue to get worse. We have no support. Nothing.
Thank you to Garodnick, de
Blasio and the TA for selling us out to this disgusting and despicable landlord.
Where are the people praising management after yet another attempted crime in this property?? This time right in the middle of the oval. If we can’t walk through the oval and feel safe, then nowhere on this property is safe anymore.
Thank Rick, Susan, and Powers/Garodnick.
Okay. Happy New Year! Ha!
As indicated, if at least several other people will join with me, openly, I will come out, so to speak.
And then, if only a handful of us, we will Stand Up and Fight.
If you prefer to first contact me on the e-mail address, then that is fine, too.
quietenjoymentnow@gmail.com
I would like to add here, though, my hypothesis, and this is something of a reversal of what I wrote last night (just a theory, mind you):
Blackstone has an agreement with some of its employees: "We will make sure that you have a job, money, benefits, etc. if you will agree to be the public face of wherever you are working. We will do what we do to the population to whom you are nominally responsible. All of their complaints, legal actions and such, will be handled by us and you will neither come to harm nor lose employment. You will bear the brunt of the fury, and possibly even be named in court actions, but we will protect you."
I too have found the last few weeks with minimal heat terrible and uncomfortable. I have resented the lies told to me about the windows being at fault and the inability or lack of management’s incentive to provide us with heat. I really do believe that it is an intentional cut in heat and comes from the top. I slept in an extra fleece robe last night and felt better. On these issues I agree with Stand up and Fight. What I do not agree with is that we tenants can change things here without a viable TA or interested and proactive local pols. In addition, many residents just put up with the cold. When my thermometer arrives tomorrow I will call 311. I am sure that many tenants do not bother. Unfortunately there are not the numbers here who could effectively put pressure on Blackstone. That being said, I do believe that this lack of heat has been the worst harassment I have encountered here bar none.
No heat again this morning.
I will call them each and everyday.
Vile,bloodsucking vermin.
>>Sorry, STR, but this blog is really getting crazy.<<
Again and again, I allow people to basically post what they want that is happening in this community. It is not up to me to censor if a person does not use profanity or does not out someone who is private. If what you want is doable (each post has to be verified for absolute truth), then this blog would become a working chore, and, frankly, I wouldn't do it anymore. It is up to you (sorry) to challenge a post if you disagree with the content. Your freedom, this person's freedom....
Frankly, I care not about Blackstone’s agreements and deals with their employees. It is irrelevant to me and I do not go around questioning them. What is relevant to me is heat and the lack of it. Obviously Hayduk and other employees need their jobs and take orders from the top. As for action, I believe that rent strikes and such would prove to be costly to those participating. This is not the radical 60’s. This is not a political issue. Foremost, the existence of a proactive TA with lawyers is essential to fight and we all know that we do not have one.
>>I really am starting to think that they are trying to harass>>
You're just STARTING to think about this? It's been going on ever since Met Life sold us out.
Happy New Year, STR. Please keep up the good work in 2019. You are our only ally and we appreciate it! God Bless you!
Anonymous Anonymous said...
I wonder if the aforementioned investigations, etc., extended to the meth factory and the suicide by sulfuric acid. Does anyone know what happened about the lawsuit that the tenants at 451 were bringing against Blackstone, NYU, et al.?
All happening on your watch, Rick. Increase in suicides, crimes against women, refusal to provide heat and general filth and squalor on the property (e.g., disgusting mattresses). Let's not forget the piggyback robberies and general decline in the QOL that we are all enduring.
Time for you to move on, no?
December 30, 2018 at 7:34 PM
Ditto
Here is the T&V link and text re “Two attempted robberies on Oval:
https://town-village.com/2018/12/31/two-attempted-robberies-on-oval/
“Stuy Town’s Public Safety department is on the lookout for two male suspects who attempted to rob an older man as well as a couple in the Oval early on New Year’s Eve morning. A Town & Village reader alerted us that as he was walking around the Oval at around 12:30 a.m., he saw a man being assaulted by two people. Fortunately, the victim was able to get help from a couple of other people who happened to be around. The reader noticed this happened near the security booth, which was unmanned at the time. Asked about this, Stuy Town General Manager Rick Hayduk confirmed the incident. According to Hayduk, they’d approached the man on the Oval and said, “Give us your money.” The resident refused and continued to walk away and they didn’t chase him. However, the pair then tried the same thing with a nearby couple, who also declined to turn over their money, and the would-be muggers fled empty-handed towards First Avenue. “The first resident immediately reported it to Public Safety who canvassed the area (officers on foot and by video) to no avail,” Hayduk said, adding that the resident asked management not to call the NYPD. Hayduk added, “The Oval booth is only occupied when the officer is seeking shelter, otherwise that officer is patrolling the Oval or the immediate vicinity.”
Of course, as per one of the 8 comments on the article, one “cheerleader’ felt obliged to chime in.
BTW, 12:35 PM-Your post on the entitled NYU students says it all.
Those of us who were here not just a few years, remember the brick guard building right at the Oval, in front of the Oval lawn, where a PS officer (I don't believe they were even called that at the time) was stationed until relieved by another PS officer. There was ALWAYS someone present there. Day, night....
Hayduk always has an answer to everything .
As for the PS Office--how many times have I seen dog smears and even unpicked crap nearby, how many times have I seen someone pedaling a bicycle right by that office. As I stated, unless one runs over a PS officer on a bicycle at the Oval, chances are good no one is going to stop you. As for those monitors.... How many times have I seen, inside, just two people monitoring those screens. They are monitoring Stuy Town and Peter Cooper Village, all the buildings, everything that is outside.... Two people, maybe three at times....
Pure BS that this community is watched and safe.
They seem to have a pattern of giving three or four hours of heat a day and claiming that it will keep the apartments warm. Unbelievable ridiculous reasoning and probably purposeful to save money.
Bill DeBlasio wants to develop the land under PCVST so he can advance his pathetic career. His accomplishments for constituents are zero while his accomplishments for real estate developers are sky high including the scandalous Rivington debacle where his chummy pal lobbyinst James Capalino got Marvin Rubin off the hook. No heat equals tenants moving out. It is a strategy.
DeBlasio has heat at home. Schwarzman has heat at home. DeBlasio campaigned here with James Capalino on 16th and First Avenue when DeBlasio and Capalino knew they are throwing this community under the bus with the DeBlasios both driving the bus over and through the people here.
DeBlasio is trying to take credit for pre-k which started years earlier under his predecessor Bloomberg. Bloomberg handed DeBlasio a success story with pre-k but DeBlasio messed that up to with a staged, scripted, dubious pre-k panel of scions of real estate developers and their pals who are all commercial advertisement Bloggers. Everyone at this table pre-k panelists is tied to major real estate deals in New York City and has little to no experience in education. It is a scripted panel of coupon bloggers aka brand ambassadors who shill for whatever product will pay them and at the helm are offspring of major developers and investors. The video is pathetic watching them pretend to be impromptu but the DeBlasios give it away nodding their approval when a line is delivered right.
Everything about the current Mayor and his administration is run by and for the real estate developers. Bill DeBlasio broke every promise. Never again voting for DeBlasio for anything.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0QSNBdGAEE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0QSNBdGAEE
5:30AM, Wednesday morning, January 2nd:
MY APARTMENT IS FREEZING.
HEATING PIPES ARE ICE COLD.
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