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.
Tuesday, January 22, 2019
You Know That Carpet Rule?
No comment for now.
I would add "enjoy the weather," but it's freezing!
With ads like this, no wonder we have so many problems here with uncarpeted apartments and noisy neighbors. “Slick Rick” Hayduk should be ashamed of himself for allowing ads where so little of the floor is carpeted. He knows this sends the absolute wrong message to prospective tenants but allows these ads to run anyway. So sick of his fake concern about providing a good quality of life and all his deliberately, unenforced good neighbor policies. We’re under siege here in every direction — no carpeting, no heat, noisy outdoor events, irresponsible dog owners, etc, etc. etc. And we have a TA incapable or unwilling to fight for the tenants who elected them and effectively stand up to Hayduk and Blackstone’s destructive policies.
Hayduk is worthless. He is the worst Manager we have ever had because he is such a DAMNED LIAR. He talks out both sides of his mouth. I wish they would just get rid of him.
I wish I knew somebody in the press or media who would run an expose on this place, covering the withholding of heat, the filth, noise, dog shit and piss, student shit and piss (and vomit) all over the place. Hayduk has turned the property into something akin to a NYCHA project. Maybe that's the mission he was charged with. I don't know. I do know that we are cold, miserable from sleepless nights caused by noisy, partying neighbors who wouldn't dream of carpeting their floors. The apartments above and below me are revolving-door units: one noisy bunch of shitters after another.
Has anyone field a complaint with the City over the lack of heat? I've heard that we get ignored, so I haven't bothered. Just have space heaters on 24/7. If it's true that we are being ignored, then we can safely assume that Management is greasing the right palms. Definitely need a New York Times piece about this dump.
What is Blackstone getting out of running this place as an unheated slum? I don't see how it benefits them. So they nickel and dime us on heat, but the reputation they are earning - and which is spreading - is going to cost them more in the long run.
Where is Powers when it comes to representing us? Where is the TA? Sorry that last one was a joke!
I hope Powers and DeBlasio don't run for office again because I will campaign against them and support ANYBODY who runs against them, even a repub. I heard DeB is mulling running for President. What a joke! He's be worse than the idiot we have now!
The problem with filing a 311 complaint with the City is that in due course they will send an inspector to your apartment to check your heat and if you have adequate heat on the day the inspector shows up, meaning heat that meets the City’s MINIMUM requirements, that will be the end of that.
That’s the problem with the 311 system. Unless you live in NYCHA housing, which is notorious for its constant lack of heat problems and where when an inspector shows up you probably ARE likely not to have heat, you will get no help from the City with your heating problems in Stuytown or Peter Cooper Village. Because of how the 311 system works, Blackstone has us over a barrel and they know it. Our only realistic hope for help with the heating problems here is to go to the press.
There is a war on against the middle and working class. Whether it is the withholding of pay for the government workers who do the most important jobs keeping us safe or the scum at Blackstone making tenants go without heat during one of the bitterest spells of winter weather. America is being murdered by these people. I wish they could be sent back to where their forefathers came from and suffer the same indignities. Their forefathers didn't deserve such suffering; this breed do.
""Slick Rick” Hayduk should be ashamed of himself for allowing ads where so little of the floor is carpeted. "
Just go by the First Ave. leasing office and take a look at the window promotion photos for our “oasis”. At best (and I’m being conservative here) 40% coverage. And that promotion truck has zero carpeting. See the comments section.
The problem here (I have pointed this out this out to Managements at various QOL meetings) is that with the dorm demo they love, roommates can change by the semester so even after pulling teeth to get an “inspection” (SPS does not do carpet inspections any more after a lease change, they are only respond via a tenant complaint to do a carpet inspection) that finally says (after the tenants/occupants lie and say they are in compliance) that they are in “compliance” (that is a joke in itself), the apartment reverts back to being in non-compliance with a roommate change. I have been dealing with this issue now for 10 years but, again, I will soon be asking for yet another meeting with management regarding an upstairs dorm apartment being in non-compliance after one NYU semester. Again. The usual, stomping, pounding, furniture moving, partying and Woo-Hooing noise level that reflects almost zero carpet compliance.
I have also asked at my last meeting why SPS does not provide carpeting (at the NYU graduate level apartments leased by NYU, carpeting is provided by NYU) for the student and the just post college apartments. These apartments are easily identified by the fact that their parents guarantee the lease. Their answer was the issue of bed bugs. After the last meeting, I should have bought up the fact if bed bugs are an issue in a carpeted environment, why are the hallways carpeted?
This s*** grows old, so tired of this, I have much better things to do.
And to make this blog more effective, again I ask people here to use their real name, as I do.
Ed Dunn. The many of us who have noisy, awful neighbors feel your pain.
As for the bed bug excuse, you are absolutely correct to point out what nonsense and how invalid it is when the hallways are carpeted. Just more BS from Slick Rick and his team so they don’t have to address the problems here.
As for using my real name, sorry, but that’s not gonna happen. This is the one place where I can safely, because I can do it anonymously, say what I really think about what goes on around here without any fear of repercussions. I don’t trust Slick Rick and his minions. We’re owned by and they work for an investment firm that only cares about the bottom line and, as they have proven over and over in the short time they’ve owned this place, not about the tenants who live here. Noisy neighbors. Noisy events on the Oval. Not enough heat. Dog piss and sh-t everywhere on the property, inside and outside buildings. Not enough Public Safety officers patrolling the property. Little to no rules enforcement of any kind. If you needed proof that they don’t care about improving the quality of life for tenants, there it is. As for the TA, I’m fed-up with their inability to take on management effectively when necessary. Deep pockets Blackstone doesn’t want to give us adequate heat? Doesn’t want to abandon the obviously flawed heating sensor system that’s supposed to provide heat but doesn’t properly do that? Then the TA should be going to the press and calling attention to it. You would think we lived in a NYCHA project when you read on the TA’s FB page and the tenants’ FB page how many people are being deprived of heat here day after day. It’s absolutely outrageous.
Hoylman needs all the good publicity and cheerleading he can get. Trouble is looming on the horizon for our representative Senator beginning from the days he was the general counsel for the partnership for new York city through the crap deal we are stuck with today.
"And to make this blog more effective, again I ask people here to use their real name, as I do."
In the current Trumpian climate, which is polluted by the Blackstones of this world, it is safer to not use your real name. You could have the Stasi hounding you.
At the risk of being accused of spouting "conspiracy theories," or being some "raving maniac," "crackpot," and so on:
This country, and many other countries, are going down the drain, and taking the natural world with them for a whole variety of reasons.
Some of those reasons involve planned destruction, plunder, increased rape of Mother Earth, determination to colonize and ultimately terraform (destroy) other planets.
And some of the oldest reasons for the behavior of what some arrogant, foolish and pompous man termed "homo sapiens" ("man the wise"): greed, lust for power over others, determination to immortalize themselves, uncontrolled desire for all sorts of things, and insane resolve to CONTROL, CONTROL, CONTROL everything they can.
Blackstone is a collection of such misguided, deranged homo sapiens. They know exactly what they are doing by destroying these two 70 year old complexes. Money, greed, lust for control and power, "visions" of more "development" (destruction) and the like.
Advertising, public relations, and all of the attendant lying, fabrications, manipulation, psychological warfare, strategies to persuade people to accept, support and "buy into" their "mission," "vision" . . . and all of the garbage most of us accept and believe and LIVE BY because we are CONDITIONED TO DO SO.
Our politicians may or may not start off with good intentions and the sincere desire to help make life better for other people. Nearly all succumb to corruption. As a youngster, I worked in quite a few political campaigns and knew quite a few politicians. One left "public service" because he could not stomach the lying, selfishness, corruption. And what is that old expression? "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely."
So . . . this is why Blackstone's destroyers are what they are and do what they do. Those who work for them believe their lies, or persuade themselves of the truth of the lies. Or imagine themselves big, important, superior people involved with this huge, influential, most wealthy company. The politicians become their toadies and go to obscenely lavish and expensive parties, etc. The police and so many others are paid off and are corrupted by the rich, important, influential company. "Rich," etc. are used here in a sarcastic sense, of course.
I don't think it is hopeless by any means. But I do believe that those who are being badly injured by Blackstone and so many other companies need to open their eyes, ears, and minds, and realize that they are cooperating with their tormentors.
That thread on the New York Times discussion about AirBnB continues! I've been checking it every once in a while.
"Just for the record, Blackstone has been withholding heat during this latest bitterly cold spell. People are using the thermometers that BS insists they have and they are recording at temperatures ranging from high fifties to low sixties, even during the daytime hours. They won't send up heat unless the complaining tenant allows an "engineer" to come up and inspect - any time up to 11 pm, even if you call early in the afternoon. Tenants are being harassed. I believe it is a ploy to make the people paying lower rent move out, but it is affecting those of us paying full market rate and we have no option but to be subjected to their despicable harassment any more than the rent stabilized tenants do.
Just returned from Chilean and Argentine Patagonia which is quite windy and cool. Everywhere I stayed was well heated. Even had to open windows. Always comfortable. Return to this slum and my bedroom is chilly. Reads 69, minimum heating.
Carpets? What carpets? Surely you jest. Either Management has rented to a herd of elephants upstairs or Rick has installed a bowling alley as another "amenity". Calls to Resident Services are worthless. This place has truly become the "projects" at 10 times the rent. Only a fool would pay market rate to live here.
We need is to GO TO THE PRESS about the lack of heat.
I had an engineer confirm to me that our heating problems derive DIRECTLY from the heat senor system and then he laughed and said at least it keeps him employed.
He acknowledged that if someone is cooking in their apartment or using space heaters, the sensor will think that apartment is warm and will NOT provide heat to other apartments. This is NOT acceptable.
They need to tear out the fucking sensors and go back to the way they used to provide heat. Is it going to take a law suit? An elderly person or baby dying? A fire from the electric heaters? Something horrific will happen sooner or later and Rick and his overlords will be tied up in lawsuits for the rest of their lives. I doubt Rick would ever be able to find another job in the hotel/apartment industry if a catastrophe occurred here on his watch. Who the hell would trust him? I know I wouldn't.
Cannot believe the glowing letter to the editor T&V published Jan 10 raving about Hayduk and management. I guess this lady has a warm apartment. That T&Ac is definitely a management rag.
Someone posted that there has ALREADY BEEN A FIRE CAUSED BY A SPACE HEATER.
Dying people, fires, "something horrific" happening (11:19 AM) is EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANT HERE.
Lawsuits mean nothing to corporations like this. I am betting that the personnel "managing" us are indemnified against a lawsuit.
I don't believe enough of us are either knowledgeable or cynical or experienced enough to know the kind of monster Blackstone Group is. They are no different than thousands of companies all over the world who hurt people for a living. And are either allowed to do so, or outright encouraged by banks, governments, and more.
Catastrophes are routinely ENGINEERED or, if accidental, taken advantage of every day of the week by people such as Blackstone's founder and others.
"Power profits from disaster." Take a look at Naomi Klein's book, "Shock Doctrine." Read up about disasters around the world occurring either naturally or caused by various corporations and governments.
THIS (what we are living with - and it's getting worse) is normal and accepted BUSINESS PRACTICE.
Have you seen today's latest offering in the restaurant/hotel style plastic holders on the shelves near our mailboxes?
Regarding Winter Entertaining: if there is "noise" cranked out by your dear considerate neighbors, please call Public Safety IF THAT NOISE IS "UNREASONABLE AND SUSTAINED."
Oh, and yes, take into account the strictly limited "Quiet Times (Hours?)" (who the hell remembers this dreck?) when complaining, allowing latitude to destroy your peace, quiet, health during the Non-Quiet Times here. Be a GOOD NEIGHBOR.
Worse and worse. More and more punishing to residents who are not fine examples of human sewage. Prove that you have any right at all to quiet enjoyment of the home for which you pay monthly if you are not the jackasses manufacturing the noise.
WE WANT YOU ALL NERVOUS, SLEEPLESS, QUIVERING, NON-FUNCTIONAL WRECKS. WE WANT YOU SICK AND THEN WE WANT YOU GONE SO WE CAN FURTHER DESTROY YOUR APARTMENT TO RAISE THE RENT FOR SOME NEW ATM'S WE WILL MOVE IN.
I have made a point of asking EVERYBODY I run into in my building, outside on the street (so long as I know they live in Sty) and in Associated if their apartment is warm. The answer I mostly get is a resounding NO! A couple of people shrugged and said "It's bearable. Just!" The people I've asked range from young to old, Rent Stabilized and Market Rent. A few of the MR tenants have said they are looking forward to moving out, most of the RS tenants have all said they would if they could afford to. There seems to be a unanimous opinion that this withholding of heat is not just so the landlord can save a few pennies, but because the actually WANT people to be uncomfortable here. Many people are buying space heaters now and that makes the property more susceptible to fires. Add to that the fact that they have chopped up so many apartments and put in temporary walls and removed doors. I doubt that these units are as fire-proof as they used to be.
Blackstone is sure living up to its reputation of being an extremely abusive, perfidious landlord who deliberately makes tenants lives a misery. They probably want us ALL out and have other ideas for the property. I'm not moving to suit them no matter what they do. If they are genuine about wanting to attract new, high-paying tenants, they should be cognizant of the fact that the word is spreading far and wide about how miserable life is in this place with the noise, lack of heat and general "f*ck you" attitude of "Management."
It's a great pity that we do not have a tenants association here. Every other large residential development I know of has a TA. I wonder why we don't? That organization that likes to use the term "TA" really have no business doing so because they do absolutely nothing for tenants. Maybe used to, but not in the 20 years that I've lived here. I think that organization is a complete sham and just some sort of lobbying interest for certain politicians.
Depending when, the pipes are cold, and it's cold outside, too. Even when the pipes are hot, the poor quality of the windows let's in cold air and certainly cold wind. Some tenants are toasty warm. I'm not, neither are many tenants.
Is anyone else who lives in the stytown projects and who is in the unfortunate circumstance of needing a car seeing what's going on with citibike? We all just lost about another 10 parking spots due to citibike extending the racks on fist ave. Since I've moved into these projects over two decades ago I would say we've lost about 50% of the available spots. I can't be the only person who can't afford $500 per month for a garage space. Fortunately, for me, I'm only two years from retirement at which time I'll leave this slum, but it's sure going to be a long two years driving around in circles trying to park. I have nothing against citibike but when does this crap end?
I've noticed that the CitiBank bike racks are getting longer and longer. I don't own a car, but the writing seems on the wall: NYC does not want cars except those taxi services, like Uber, that riders pay for.
Spoke with a heating engineer who told me that we will be getting new windows as soon as Management decides which one they want to install.
Although I won’t mind having new windows if they are actually efficient and do what they were meant to do, unlike the junk windows we have now and have paid for the last 20 years, I won’t be happy to be charged an MCI for the new windows.
Apparently, the NY State Legislature, which is now controlled by the Democrats, is working on doing away with the law that allows landlords to fold MCIs into our base rent FOREVER and we will only have to pay our share of the ACTUAL cost of the windows and not one penny more. At least that’s something to be thankful for.
"I've noticed that the CitiBank bike racks are getting longer and longer. I don't own a car, but the writing seems on the wall: NYC does not want cars except those taxi services, like Uber, that riders pay for."
I absolutely agree STR, but that doesn't change the burden that the loss of all these spots produces. I remember in the late 90's how easy it was to park here. I used to pass spots to get one closer to my apt. I would gladly get rid of my car if I could.
"why can't you afford to move out have you not saved up hundreds of thousand paying half as much as the rest of the city tenants?"
The city wasn't always as expensive as it is now and affordable housing was always as scarce as hen's teeth. A lot of people have lived pay-check-to-paycheck and, after raising kids and paying bills, putting food on the table, taking care of doctors and dentists bills, haven't been able to squirrel away hundreds of thousands. Asshole.
"Spoke with a heating engineer who told me that we will be getting new windows as soon as Management decides which one they want to install."
My original guess was Just Call Rick's bonus this year would be directly linked to fuel cost savings realized via refusal to deliver adequate heat.
Since Black$tone's trademark is exploitation, a complex-wide window replacement scheme makes sense.
Manufacture a phony crisis refusing adequate heat, then launch an equally phony - "You asked. We listened. We responded." - P.R. campaign hyping massive, unnecessary MCI projects replacing windows, heating plant, etc.
Maybe Black$tone recently acquired a distressed window manufacturer to service the hundreds-of-thousands of distressed middle class homes it lords over?
>>The city wasn't always as expensive as it is now and affordable housing was always as scarce as hen's teeth. A lot of people have lived pay-check-to-paycheck and, after raising kids and paying bills, putting food on the table, taking care of doctors and dentists bills, haven't been able to squirrel away hundreds of thousands. Asshole.<<
I wouldn't say that last word publicly (for now), but as to the rest I agree 100%. I wonder when "the yellow-vest movement" will reach this country? It's the BS or indifference coming out of big companies, including Blackstone, that will be the cause a "yellow-vest movement" here.
Not sure I see anything that nefarious in replacing our old and absurdly inefficient windows which malfunctioned from the start. Our current windows were installed 1991-1994 and according to Fact Sheet #33: Useful Life Schedule for Major Capital Improvements from DHCR, they have met the number of years required to qualify for replacement and an MCI.
I certainly hope that Blackstone is aware of the last window replacement debacle and doesn’t make any similar mistakes this time around. If they need a history lesson on what happened here, they should read this NY Times article for a start.
Not sure I see anything that nefarious in replacing our old and absurdly inefficient windows which malfunctioned from the start. Our current windows were installed 1991-1994 and according to Fact Sheet #33: Useful Life Schedule for Major Capital Improvements from DHCR, they have met the number of years required to qualify for replacement and an MCI.
I certainly hope that Blackstone is aware of the last window replacement debacle and doesn’t make any similar mistakes this time around. If they need a history lesson on what happened here, they should read this NY Times article for a start.
8:17. What is concerning is that they may try to blame the lack of heat on the defective windows. They immediately did that when the engineer came up even though for many years up until December, I had the same windows and plenty of heat. They immediately sealed my windows and there was only marginal improvement. When my pipes are hot, my apartment is comfortable. It is not the windows. It is the fact that they cut the heat to the bare minimum. It will just be another MCI. I would rather they just turn up the heat as they have in the past couple of days. That is what is nefarious. Blaming lack of heat on windows, then charging to change them.
>>Not sure I see anything that nefarious in replacing our old and absurdly inefficient windows which malfunctioned from the start. Our current windows were installed 1991-1994 and according to Fact Sheet #33: Useful Life Schedule for Major Capital Improvements from DHCR, they have met the number of years required to qualify for replacement and an MCI.<<
The windows are a sham and we are still paying for them. That's the problem.
Right now, the public protest is in France. Weeks running. Oddly, the protest is both right and left and against higher prices. The protests are wearing yellow vests.
Blackstone will change the windows, charge another MCI, raise the heat level next winter and tell us it was the fault of the windows. I have their number.
It doesn’t matter whether you think Blackstone is nefarious or not and it doesn’t matter that we got screwed, which we absolutely did, paying for the windows we currently have. Our windows are 25+ years old and once they drilled holes in them - which they did almost immediately after they were installed, since so many of them were exploding - and released the insulating gas they contained, the windows became virtually useless in doing the job they were intended to do. So, like it or not, it’s hard to argue that our 25+ year old, crap windows shouldn’t be replaced at this point in time. According to DHCR Fact Sheet #33, Blackstone has the LEGAL right to replace the windows and it looks like that’s what they’re going to do. The reality is that no matter who our owner was they would probably do the same thing.
Stuy Town Reporter said... >>Not sure I see anything that nefarious in replacing our old and absurdly inefficient windows which malfunctioned from the start. Our current windows were installed 1991-1994 and according to Fact Sheet #33: Useful Life Schedule for Major Capital Improvements from DHCR, they have met the number of years required to qualify for replacement and an MCI.<<
The windows are a sham and we are still paying for them. That's the problem.
Blackstone is one of worst bloodsucking entities on the planet. Rick is Blackstone all the way through to the bone. Never trust or believe a word he says. He is Blackstone in The Flesh. Don't EVER trust him because you will do so at your peril.
why can't you afford to move out have you not saved up hundreds of thousand paying half as much as the rest of the city tenants? >>>>>>>
Maybe you don't know this, but PCVST was built for returning WWII Veterans and middle-income people to live in dignity in a pleasant surrounding. Middle income people didn't make the kind of salaries that would enable them to save hundreds of thousand of dollars so that they could move out when the property was converted into an overpriced slum that only the higher income people could afford to live in. Get the picture?
I recently developed arthritis in my knees and ankles. My doctor recommended warm baths once a day. After two weeks, I got a terrible rash. So I go back to my Doctor and we discussed what I was doing differently. While I had started a new Med he thought I had contact dermatitis. This is a fungal inferection. Maybe it’s the baths I thought. I scrubbed my tub. The first time I went to take a bath again, I got the dreaded brown water. I took a sample to a water testing place and you guessed it the brown water had caused my infection. I’ve been in this building for over 20 years and have had this brown water sporadically. What a awful place for a senior to retire in. I hope no children get ill from the bath water either. FYI
And, if they replace them, I'm pretty sure that the original MCI charge continues.
January 24, 2019 at 12:53 PM
CORRECT.
That’s how the VERY UNFAIR, ETERNAL GIFT TO LANDLORDS, MCI law was originally written and why the Democrats, now that they are in power, are looking to change the MCI law. Pray that they do, so we are no longer screwed in perpetuity every time DHCR approves one of Blackstone’s applications for an MCI.
2:03 PM: you should report this issue to the Board of Health. That water is a serious health hazard. This landlord doesn't do requisite routine maintenance and that raises a lot of concerns over health hazards here. The elderly, very young and people who are sick or have a compromised immune system are particularly at risk. Blackstone wouldn't care if the Black Death was rampant through the property so long as they could get away with not spending any money to remedy it! You have to remember that this company is all about money. Human life and health is of no concern to them. They are evil people with totally no consciences and we have to protect outselves.
why can't you afford to move out have you not saved up hundreds of thousand paying half as much as the rest of the city tenants? >>>>>>>
I can afford to move out but at the rent I'm paying why would I? When they lower the heat I go to my vacation home that I bought with the money I saved. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to boast about how smart I have been over the last 50 years. That feels good. Gotta run, my chauffeur is downstairs.
I am wondering if we are in the early stages of a massive effort to aggressively push out hundreds, or even thousands of us. Just as Tishman Speyer did years back.
The same lawyer who attempted to evict thousands of us then is writing letters to at least some of us who repeatedly demand heat.
Rather than supply needed sufficient heat, it is being withheld to many of us. This is not only illegal and evidence of lack of conscience, it is clearly designed to allow some of us (including infants and young children) to become physically ill, and perhaps worse. It is clearly designed to cause many of us to buy and use space heaters, which of course, could result in deadly fires. The same goes for those of us turning on stoves. Fires, possible deaths, horrendous injury, loss of possessions.
It is clearly designed to harass us into abandoning our homes so they can lure more people in for more money.
If we complain, they trot out inane and carefully rehearsed scripts about sensors, proprietary thermometers and set points. THEY IGNORE REQUESTS FOR HEAT.
At some point, they will seek to punish us for demanding heat by threatening us with eviction.
Intimidation tactics are being used now, different from that time period around 2007. But it makes sense that Blackstone is moving to attempt to evict us, or otherwise throw us out of our homes.
There has been an easily seen escalation in the creation and expansion of misery-inducing living conditions here since last Spring.
Think of the noise, filth, land and building destruction, increasing neutralization of the Security Officers, truly dangerous conditions of all kinds being multiplied here by Blackstone. Think of the mushrooming numbers of crimes, attempted crimes, suicides, strangers here with access to our buildings; think of the worsening hotel creation here; think of the incessant Public Relations doublespeak that is now BLAMING US FOR ATTEMPTED OR COMPLETED THEFTS, ASSAULTS, RAPES. Think of how warm weather public drinking of alcohol appeared last year, along with walls of marijuana smoke on the dark Oval during "movie night."
Think of the nearly incomprehensible numbers of students who just keep coming and coming.
I believe they've drastically stepped up the campaign to remove us from our homes.
"Manufacture a phony crisis refusing adequate heat, then launch an equally phony - "You asked. We listened. We responded." - P.R. campaign hyping massive, unnecessary MCI projects replacing windows, heating plant, etc."
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January 24, 2019 at 8:17 AM
"Our current windows were installed 1991-1994 and according to Fact Sheet #33: Useful Life Schedule for Major Capital Improvements from DHCR, they have met the number of years required to qualify for replacement and an MCI.
Note: Blackstone's phony P.R. campaign hyping a massive, unnecessary MCI window replacement project commenced with a comment posted on STR by a TA Board troll on January 24, 2019 at 8:17 AM.
Window replacement isn't necessary, but can be justified pursuant to corrupt, REBNY puppet DHCR regs that make it legal.
Instead of protesting Blackstone's refusal to deliver adequate heat, the Vichy PCVST TA Board will welcome and applaud Blackstone's massive MCI window replacement project needlessly driving up rents in furtherance of Blackstone successfully executing Speyer's failed business plan to rake in multiple billion dollar windfalls pushing the historic PCVST middle class community out of their homes.
We also have a weekend home and it s the only way we get to heat in the winter. We moved here in 1979 though and have been in pc for a long time with issues. One has to be able to get away from this at times.
“Blackstone's phony P.R. campaign hyping a massive, unnecessary MCI window replacement project commenced with a comment posted on STR by a TA Board troll on January 24, 2019 at 8:17 AM.”
8:17 here. Here we go again with accusing a commenter of being a TA Board troll or working for Blackstone. That’s why this blog has some serious credibility issues. I’m not a TA Board troll and I’m certainly not working for Blackstone, but believe whatever you want. Don’t let THE FACTS get in your way.
FACT: Blackstone is going to install new windows because they are LEGALLY allowed to and any owner would probably do the same.
FACT: The TA is POWERLESS to stop Blackstone from installing new windows and applying for an MCI.
At the very least the MCI we are still paying for the current defective windows should end . Are we going to pay 2 MCIs for windows including one for windows that are so bad that they have to be replaced
Just read on the TA site where a NYC inspector questioned a resident concerning the lack of heat. She said no comment. Maybe she has adequate heat and did not want to give the impression that others do too. But she reads this blog. At least they are inquiring. Maybe she is afraid. In any case, not a good thing for us.
No heat, section 8 , air bnb, students rule, filthy mattresses and garbage. Thanks Garodnick, Hoylman, Kavanagh and de Blasio. And a special thanks to that sham of an organization which calls itself a TA. You turned us into a slum.
I live in an apartment that gets sporadic heat, never enough to keep the rooms warm and long periods of no heat at all. It gets very chilly! A co-worker lives in a different building (somewhere on 14th Street) and he tells me that his first-floor apartment actually has sensors in the living room, but the heat is never on and his apartment is freezing! So much for the efficacy of the sensors! We don't mind coming to work because at least we can be warm from 9 to 5!
I think everyone should be aware that the TA Facebook page is carefully monitored by Management, so unless you are going to write something positive and complimentary about Management, just don't go there! Big Brother is a reality here!
>>Here we go again with accusing a commenter of being a TA Board troll or working for Blackstone. That’s why this blog has some serious credibility issues.<<
And again, here we go with the credibility charge. Do know that I am not passing through every comment. Do know, again and again, if you have serious problems with this blog, you can make your own and post away. It is free.
Actually if you read through your MCI DHCR packet on the last window installment it was challenged by tenants on the First Ave Loop buildings and the TA lawyer. The previous landlord installed faulty windows. Should we get charged for fixing a deliberate mistake by the former landlord in a window scam? Maybe we should get the name of the last contractor who installed and manufacturer company who made the windows we have now and get our money back!
"Are we going to pay 2 MCIs for windows including one for windows that are so bad that they have to be replaced"
Actually, the existing windows that we are paying an MCI for have been bad from the get-go. We should never have been charged an MCI for them because they were defective when they were installed.
Remember, people, those defective windows were installed by benevolent(?) Met Life. If new windows are really installed in the future, it will be by malevolent Blackstone--with or without Slick Rick around.
At the very least the MCI we are still paying for the current defective windows should end . Are we going to pay 2 MCIs for windows including one for windows that are so bad that they have to be replaced.
Unfortunately, that’s how the current MCI law works. The MCI law as it stands now was a HUGE GIFT to landlords and one of the most unfair, hostile to tenants laws ever passed in this state. You can thank Republicans for that.
We will pay for the windows we currently have IN PERPETUITY, meaning FOREVER. The MCI for them got folded into our base rent a long time ago and will stay there for eternity or until our buildings are no longer standing.
Everything has a lifespan, including windows. According to DHCR, at 25+ years old ours have reached their useful life and can now legally be replaced and MCI’d UNLESS the Democrats, who are now in power in the NY State Legislature, abolish the MCI law entirely, which they have said they want to do. On the other hand, Governor Cuomo, that fake Democrat and no friend to tenants, might be OK with just doing away with the forever part of the MCI law. We’ll know what happens by June 15, 2019 when the NY State rent laws come up for renewal.
Here’s an article from just a few days ago on this very topic: https://therealdeal.com/2019/01/22/new-york-landlords-rush-rent-hikes-ahead-of-housing-reforms/
There's an article about heat complaints in NYC in T&V. It makes a brief (very brief) mention of PCVST. Absolutely ignores the current situation of so many of us going without heat this winter. That rag is DEFINITELY controlled by Management. Will never again renew my subscription. In fact, I'm going to see if I can cancel it and get a refund on the balance.
1. The letters basically accuse tenants of bothering "them" - I am being intentionally vague here.
2. WILL PEOPLE WHO HAVE RECEIVED THESE LETTERS PLEASE JUST LET US KNOW HERE ON THIS BLOG?
3. This is a common tactic. The term is: "The best defense is a good offense." In this case, it is a shameful tactic of "offense." Truth, HEAT, and a 'fessing up, or coming clean about what the hell they've been doing to us would be lovely.
Person with arthritic knees and ankles: massaging peanut oil into those joints might help. Also, lots of movement supposedly helps arthritis sufferers.
Would you consider posting the exact results of the test of the brown water?
"I can afford to move out but at the rent I'm paying why would I?"
Because as much as you despise yourself, there is still a little self love down there somewhere? Because as little self respect that you have, you still have some? Because you don't want to live in a slum, at any price? I'm trying here!
I don't want to jinx myself, but we are getting such great heat today! My apartment (which is usually like a fridge) is so toasty that I am kvelling! I wonder if Rick went away for the weekend, so his minions are amping up the heat a little out of compassion and mercy for those of us who have been suffering so much this winter. I hope Rick doesn't read this blog because if he does he may have some people beheaded for giving us heat this cold weekend. (Normally, "Management" doesn't care how cold it is, they stick to their 60something credo and NOTHING MORE and ZERO after 8 pm!). Bastards!
January 25, 2019 at 9:19 PM Let's screen t at the Oval Movie night and put it on our televisions too. Then we can put our televisions facing out our windows screening the PBS Schumer Schwarzman movie so all passersby can get a glimpse and maybe get some newspaper to cover the complex wide Oval Movie screenings. The Tenant Association Board President Susan and Treasurer - Blackstone dealmaker can even get their photo taken for the Schumer -Schwarzman StuyTown Movie night screenings. Now that would be a worthwhile publicity effort to get the truth out about a complex called StuyTown.
I certainly am in favor of legalizing marijuana. Having said that the odor of weed is omnipresent throughout my building. Is it really necessary for a group of college bros to sit outside on the terrace level stairs smoking pot? Show a little class and respect your neighbors.
>>Is it really necessary for a group of college bros to sit outside on the terrace level stairs smoking pot? Show a little class and respect your neighbors.<<
">>I don't want to jinx myself, but we are getting such great heat today!<<
Maybe the heat is coming up for you, but it certainly is not for me and, I would assume, others."
None today. I guess I did jinx myself. Maybe Hayduk came back and told them to turn it off - how dare they make tenants comfortable! Woke up freezing this morning.
I hate this place. If I could afford to move out I would be out in a flash. I would've been out here years ago (when TS took over) if I could afford it. I despise the people who own and run this place and I despise the vile so-called "Tenants Association." They should disband and go away. Better yet, they should be exposed and sent to jail.
BUT: Is an engineer up there right now verifying that you are beneath the Almighty set-point?
AND: Before the engineer arrived, did you do the following at least one hour before their arrival in order that "accurate" readings utilizing a laser device could be made:
Turned off your single or multiple space heaters?
Ceased using your oven for warmth in the apartment your landlord declares is toasty and comfortable and safe?
Thoroughly doused your fireplace embers, your campfire embers and your bonfire embers which have been providing your only source of warmth?
Once all of these listed and other forms of warmth you may have been forced to employ are completely dead, and you are now operating cold storage for modest fees, then an engineer will grace your home and declare that all is well, and your sacred Ambient temperatures in each room are reading tropical.
Walls are paper thin. No carpeting in the apartment directly above. Minimal heat. Carriage room filled with garbage. Is this the "projects"? No it's Stuytown. Thanks Susan Steinberg and the Tenants Association for doing nothing.
Here is more on Schumer and his sleazy ways. He undermined this community by selling our homes right out from under us and got himself very rich along the way. He even undermines his peers in government stealing their ideas to advance himself. We all know smarmy, manipulative, dishonest people like that where we work who take credit for our work. We do not need that sleaze tactic in our homes and families.
No wonder Schwarzman's office never returned my email. Despite Stuy Town being a valued property for Blackstone, the residents here are considered peons.
There is a Schwarzman College and Schwarzman Scholars. And guess which country and its peoples are now the focus? If you said the United States and Americans, you lose. Big time.
You know it's winter in stuytown cooper cuz your flat is full of cigarette smoke. Not because you my friend are a smoker, your neighbors are. Come rent here if you smoke indoors and want your neighbors and their children to get cancer.
Schumer and Schwarzman are close socially and in business. This is old news.
They built the CUNY dorms in Peter Cooper Village while they were building the Staten Island NYU CUNY dorms in 2013.
They were supposed to break ground in Peter Cooper Village around 2013 as another attempt at building luxury condos but that went nowhere (the 2013 and previous attempts made all failed for some reason).
A lot of construction workers expected work in Peter Cooper Village that did not happen.
Our representative Chuck Schumer and his wife who holds various New York City positions from Department of Transportation to Vice Chancelor NYU CUNY installed the transient housing that includes dorms and AIRBNB.
Everyone knows Schumer's wife Iris Weinshall is behind construction of the NYU CUNY student dorms, meeting rooms and StuyTown gym that took over Peter Cooper Village.
Schumer's wife Iris Weinshall is head of once iconic now generic event party space The New York Public Library which has Steve Schwarzman's name on it courtesy Schumers. When it comes to Schumer, it is a family business and one that is making the Schumers very wealthy and the billionaires they court much more wealthy.
"Iris Weinshall resigned from DOT to take the role of Vice Chancellor of the City University of New York. Her field was Facility Planning, Construction, and Management. Weinshall’s duty was to oversee the planning, building and the maintenance of physical structures on behalf of the university."
https://pandagossips.com/posts/1939
“With 170,000-square-feet and 454 beds between them, the buildings are serving a variety of student living options,” said Iris Weinshall, CUNY vice chancellor for facilities planning, construction and management.
With lounges, meeting rooms, and a state-of-the art fitness center, “it has everything students need and feel to be at home at this school,” she added.The pace of construction after ground was broken in March 2012 was touted at the event — especially since the target opening of the dorms didn’t change in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy."
Airbnb rules in Stuyvesant Town! I see "wheelies" all the time, out-of-towners pushing luggage asking "Ou est l'Ovale?" (Where is the Oval) in French and other languages. It would be humorous except...THIS ISN'T A HOTEL.
I hadn't noticed this until I read it on this blog, now I can't stop noticing it. Thanks! I'm referring to the helicopter noise. So far today at least 4 takeoffs or landings have occurred and it's not even 9:30. There was helicopter noise at 2:30 A.M. but I'm not sure that was a landing/takeoff or just a flyby. Has Keith Powers been kidnapped? He is surely, M. I. A. at the least. WTF?
Mayor di Blasio appears on the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC radio — 93.9 FM and 820 AM — pretty much every Friday at 10am. Unfortunately, because of the kind of job I have, I’m not available at that time to call in to the show and let di Blasio know what’s going on here with the lack of heat and ask him what he can do to help us, but I hope that someone reading this will. The WNYC phone number is (212) 433-9692.
I’m well aware that di Blasio was in favor of Blackstone buying PCVST and spoke at the press conference announcing the sale to Blackstone, but that shouldn’t stop anyone from calling in. Let everyone listening to WNYC, which is lots and lots of people, and the station itself with its many reporters know what’s going on here. Maybe di Blasio will be embarrassed or concerned and actually try to help us. Even if that doesn’t happen, it will get the word out that we are in trouble here.
We need to make Blackstone’s inability or unwillingness to provide us with adequate heat and their endangerment of our health known everywhere we can. In addition to calling, which I hope someone will do, anyone with a Twitter account, which I don’t have, can use the Twitter hashtag #askthemayor to ask a question or make a comment. Brian and/or his staff monitor that Twitter feed during the show.
Schumer has always been a sleazy, dirty politician. I would never vote for him under any circumstances. Neither will I vote for that Gillibrand woman who he forced onto us. As for Keith Powers, he is always MIA when it comes to PCVST issues - except when there's a photo-op and some glad-handing. I would rather vote for "the other side" than vote for any of the above-mentioned, or maybe just not vote at all.
"Because as much as you despise yourself, there is still a little self love down there somewhere? Because as little self respect that you have, you still have some? Because you don't want to live in a slum, at any price? I'm trying here!"
Sorry, but complete fail. Loving life, like self, tons of self respect. This is nothing more than a place to lay my head before I'm off to someplace else. Although I'm generally in the city 5 days a week I'm also generally not in the PIG STY more than 1 to 2 waking hours per day. That's mostly showering and getting ready to leave, so under $1500/month for an old fashioned 2 bedroom seems fair to me.
During the worst heat problems, occurring while we were braving bitterly cold wind and temperatures the last holiday weekend, I tried a couple of phone numbers for the mayor's office, left my name, number, details.
AND WHADDYA GUESS HAPPENED? ANY RESPONSE WHATEVER???
During the worst heat problems, occurring while we were braving bitterly cold wind and temperatures the last holiday weekend, I tried a couple of phone numbers for the mayor's office, left my name, number, details.
AND WHADDYA GUESS HAPPENED? ANY RESPONSE WHATEVER???
Zip. Zilch. Nada. Nuthin
But Brian Lehrer’s show is a VERY PUBLIC FORUM in which to report what’s going on here. Even if you don’t want to call or tweet, I hope that someone else will.
Many of my neighbors are using space heaters. Just a matter of time before there is a fire. Space heaters are inherently unsafe but, hey, you have to stay warm. The nickel and dime ghouls who run this place are beneath contempt. Where the Fu*k is the Tenants Association? UNBELIEVABLE.
Can anyone tell me why brown water is coming out of my bath tub faucets??? I just moved in ( at an outrageous rent I may add ) and I've never seen this before. And the walls are really paper thin. I can hear everything next door. And I mean everything if you know what I mean. I think I made a really bad choice. Oh well, I have to tough it out for the next two years. Then I'm out of here.
You did make a bad choice. I am sorry. I think the reputation of this place is spreading and potential renters are seeing beyond the phony PR. They cannot rent many of these market rate apartments. That is why you see so many students packed into apartments here.
I am so sick of Peter Stuyvesant (aka TA) posting photos of local politicians and their bills passed. DO SOMETHING to help the people you represent with their heat problems. I can care less about Hoylman who was all in favor of this Blackstone takeover.
DeBlasio has been a curse on this City from the very beginning of his reign. Lazy, uncaring and corrupt. I hope he disappears as soon as his current term is over.
Hoylman takes care of people with 'special' needs--like himself--first. The same garbage had also appeared in T&V. Under Founder Hagedorn, no Democratic Party politician was ever given 'positive' coverage therein. And in those days, few Democrats ever won local office.
Just wait until the NY State Legislature legalizes recreational marijuana, which Assembly Member Harvey Epstein says they’re likely to do this year in an opinion piece he wrote in T&V. The HORRIBLE STENCH of marijuana spreading to neighboring apartments and into our hallways is bad enough in PCVST as it is, but, once it’s legal, it will be even worse here and there won’t be a single thing anyone can do about it. At least now, it’s a lease violation. The quality of life in this city gets worse every day. Especially here in PCVST, where so many of us already have to put up with apartments that don’t get enough heat, noisy neighbors, almost no enforcement of any of the supposed rules, etc., etc., etc.
I agree that the legalization of pot will cause problems in ST/PC. If the students can smoke it out in the open the buildings will stink. Even now the nauseating smell often fills the elevator and hall. It will be disgusting.
StuyTown has low level quality of life problems from pot to hazardous illegal hotels because our politicians are in business with the real estate developers of the Lower East Side, Gramcery, Union Square and the West Village.
Senator Hoylman's husband's family is Tishman Speyer construction of NYU dorms.
Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh's family works for Taconic Hedge Fund (developers of massive lower east side project that will reap fortunes with neighboring property values rising alongside from LES to Gramercy to the Hudson River).
Schumer's wife construction of CUNY dorms
The conflicts of interest are grotesque and glaringly evident. The dirtiest hands are probably Kavanagh and that says something when the others on the list are Hoylman and Schumer. Taconic Hedge Fund is as ruthless as Blackstone.
This community did not and does not stand a chance of surviving with a Tenant Association that promotes politicians in business with developers like Blackstone, NYU and Taconic.
Residents smoke pot with impunity in and out of their apartments. It is defacto legal in Manhattan already courtesy of DA Cyrus Vance's edict not to enforce simply ignore. For Management to suddenly begin to issue Lease Violations would open up a can of worms they surely don't want to do. It is only a matter of time before marijuana becomes legal in New York State. Tremendous potenetial revenue involved. Look at revenue New Jersey derived from in-state sports betting. Gambling and marijuana are truly cash cows!
Thank you to the person who posted the documentary on Chuck Schumer, Steve Schwarman Blackstone, Paul Ryan and David Koch.
Our politicians are bought and paid for by our landlord.
The documentary compares the access to opportunities of residents of Park Avenue both on the Upper East Side and in the South Bronx.[1][2][3] It draws upon Michael Gross's book 740 Park: The Story of the World's Richest Apartment Building, which showed that many billionaires live in that building.[1] It goes on to explain that billionaire heir David Koch made significant donations to Paul Ryan in the same way that banker Steven Schwartzman lobbied Charles Schumer—for their own gain.[1] The documentary includes interviews with a doorman at 740 Park Avenue, journalist Jane Mayer, Yale University Professor Jacob Hacker, University of California, Berkeley Professor Paul Piff, and Republican advisor Bruce Bartlett.[3]
Speaking of freezing, why does management have these idiots using leaf blowers and cutting branches offf trees, old and young, right before the coldest weather in a decade. The incompetence is unrivaled here. It’s like they want everything to die. They spend money on the grounds only to spend money to hire incompetent idiots to kill everything. Management sucks.
Going to get real cold today and tonight. Pipes are cold already. We'll see if the scum who present themselves as Management will pump up the heat when temps get into the single digits. I wouldn't count on it.
Taconic Hedge Fund was an employer of some (many? one) of our Blackstone employees here.
You are very welcome for the posting of the PBS documentary, PARK AVENUE: MONEY, POWER, etc. (part of a series on POVERTY in our glorious nation of equality, democracy, humane behavior).
The information about Kavanagh is particularly illuminating, and disturbing, to me. Some years back, I went to his office with an exceedingly serious problem. His staff refused to ever grant me access to him and I was told I could not be helped.
The problem? Well, here those who can do harm to us are trying to either outright push us out of our homes and/or harass us, making our homes places of pain instead of refuge. Employers, particularly government employers, do the same in our workplace, causing us to be ill in diverse ways, and causing us to be without jobs, money, health care, etc. Politicians perform the same functions.
I went to Kavanagh because of what was to me mindboggling corruption and collusion among a (a) private company, (b) The New York City Department of Education, and (c)NYS State Unemployment folks. It included the suborning of perjury, openly, by an attorney of a witness who was clearly being "incentivized" to lie about something he had no knowledge of or involvement with. The lawyer himself was clearly ordered to substantially and seriously interfere in a matter which was outside of his authority.
What is the word? Clusterf**ck?
I had such hopes that the estimable Mr. Kavanugh would assist me. No way.
Keith Powers and Harvey Epstein were to follow in his footsteps years later when I (and others here) appealed to them for help.
I am informed that Judge Judy asks: "How do you know a teenager is lying?" Answer: "Their lips are moving." Regarding politicians, it is so much worse and damaging.
Although my heat situation is generally and I say “generally” better, I had to call this morning after five hours of cold pipes. I cannot stand it when my bedroom is 68 and the engineer tells the rep that others in my line are at 72. How does he know that? Plus many tenants are not home or do not care. They did pump the heat up considerably. So they can put it up when they want to. This rep happens to be very nice and helpful.
Since Hayduk arrived, the property and quality of life has gone downhill at an alarming rate. The withholding of heat and pegging it to 68 - 72 degrees is one example. 68 degrees is not in any way comfortable in these drafty old thin-walled buildings and in many apartments it doesn't even get as high as 68. The grounds have become dirty and neglected and the demographic of students and transients has exploded.
I think he was sent in by Blackstone to drive out the demo of folks who call this place home. Either that, or he is thoroughly incompetent and misanthropic. I just wish he would go away and they would put a caring and competent manager in his place. Caring and competent people are probably rather thin on the ground at Blackstone.
You are not going to get a “caring and competent “ manager from Blackstone. Don’t you understand that they give Hayduk his orders. He does not control the heat or the policies. He is told what to do.
For the twentieth time, RICK HAYDUK DOES NOT act on his own. He may be a phony hypocrite, but he is PA man and takes orders from higher up. He is not responsible for the deterioration of the property. BLACKSTONE is.
Kavanagh's father is a retired Transit NYPD Chief who worked in Brooklyn and the family is from Staten Island. He knows better then to have his son and grandson involved with the likes of Taconic and Blackstone's ruthless, immoral ways.
You could plug in New York politicians names into this story to see how the New York pay to play real estate politicians are getting richer while the constituents are getting poorer. Same game, different city, same players including Blackstone. NY City Hall and City Council is as corrupt. Someone just posted StuyTown landlord and mega NYC developer Blackstone Tony James manipulating the upcoming Mayors race interfering with the election to rig the outcome. Anyone remember who the commentor said he was pushing to run? DeBlasios affordable housing plan with Glen, city council economic development corporation and city councilman zoning commission run the same scams with developers in NY as the Chicago scams to make the politicians look like heroes when really they are making themselves economically and politically richer, us poorer.
"Some candidates for mayor of Chicago should begin memorizing the following line:
To the best of my knowledge, at this point in time, I can’t recall. That’s what politicians say when they’re under federal investigation and asked bothersome questions.
And right now, the feds are crawling all over City Hall. They’ve charged longtime and powerful Ald. Edward Burke, 14th, with extortion. They’ve wired Ald. Danny “Viagra” Solis, 25th, for sound. According to an affidavit reported on by the Chicago Sun-Times, Solis received Viagra and illegal favors at massage parlors in exchange for his efforts at City Hall."
Over the past many months, and especially very recently, I've had the opportunity to see WHO it is walking into Residential Services on the First Avenue Loop, WHO, that is, who is not a tenant.
How shall I characterize them? SUITS, which long ago became a pejorative and fairly nasty descriptive for many people. Corporate, oligarchy, kleptocracy, hierarchy, paternalism, imperialists, colonialists, fascists, feudal lords, invaders, those who rape, pillage and plunder land, and other people and life forms. Those who steal, take, impose their wills upon others. Read history. Read what used to be called in school, "Current Events."
To them, everything in life is for sale, has a price, is to be consumed, sold, advertised, packaged, distorted, used for the immediate or ultimate desires of their small, greedy selves.
They are the same predatory, emotionally dead animal that the STR himself described walking around the Oval last year and exclaiming about its usefulness as "a great resource."
I've not seen them ever walking alone; they travel in packs of predators - beyond self-assured - smug and self-satisfied - and here for no good for us. I've yet to witness them contaminating Stuyvesant with their presence in groups any smaller than two, and often much larger.
More distressingly, the only responses I've witnessed "Stuytown" employees display when they appear is something that appears to me to be fear. Maybe panic. Maybe fully developed cases of "nerves."
The theory I often fall back on is substantiated by the fear I observe them elicit. I would suspect that they absolutely terrorize their underlings. Period. Maybe the people running Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village have convinced themselves that Blackstone is a worthwhile, honorable, honest employer and the like. If so, it is only for survival. Because the Suits that walk around here are ugly, very dangerous and vicious predators who destroy homes, land, health, peace, lives of people and other animals.
I have worked among Suits in many positions and more than one profession for decades. There are some who are decent folk. Too often, they are anything but, particularly if they are in the business of "owning" "property" or carrying out the orders of those who "own" land.
They cannot be reasoned with and they’ve no sympathy, and certainly no empathy, for anyone. Or they’ve deadened that empathy. They either brainwash others to accept their view of life. Or they buy them. Or they threaten them. And buy governments, military, the police.
And their prey, which they consider EVERYONE and EVERYTHING ELSE, usually timidly knuckles under, accepting worsening conditions, or the threat of worsening conditions.
Those who write that any CEO here is just “following orders” is correct. Defy the soul-dead Suits, and end up with terrible, terrible trouble.
I can personally attest to the severe injury and misery “those in power” inflict upon you when you say, “No,” or worse, request that they find and activate their own humanity. I’ve seen what employers and others do to others who say, “No, I won’t do what you tell me.” And I’ve said “No,” myself, many times and consequently undergone hardship materially, physically, and more.
All of which is to say: Understand from whom this hell is coming (don’t shoot the messenger) and, despite the enormity of it all, consider resisting Blackstone's expanding destruction of our homes
With the exception of Jerold Nadler, I think all New York City and State politicians are corrupt to the core. I won't vote anymore in local elections, only Presidential elections.
I am not happy with any of the local politicians who have been in office here over the past five years. They keep getting re-elected and do nothing positive. That includes Garodnick, deBlasio, Kavannagh, Holman And Cuomo so whom I blame for destroying the state agency I worked for.
Here are the names of the lawyers and law firms who have not won a single tenant harassment lawsuit against a landlord in over 20 years. Legal Aid Society ought to be shut down after being sued to the core. All the lawyers and law firms are very wealthy. Not one single case against a landlord for tenant harassment in over 20 years is more than disgraceful, it is criminal. Urban Justice, GOLES, any and of the existing so called tenant groups are no better then Legal Aid Society. In New York City there is no shortage of landlords harassing tenants. We might as well do away with the useless Public Advocate job too. These lawyers and law firms work for the landlords and developers.
As I came into my building this evening, I noticed that in the promotional materials left for our perusal was a leaflet entitled "Quieter Living in The City." Boggles the mind. Management lives in an alternate universe.
I think that part of the heat problem stems from the fact that there are so many tenants here who either are students and do not care or people afraid to call management. When I poll neighbors about the heat, some say they have plenty( not buying it always) or it is kind of chilly during the day but warm at night. Then there are those who just use space heaters and are content to risk fire using them. All of these apathetic and denying residents make it easier for Blackstone to withhold heat. I have heard residents say that they are fine with having to resort to space heaters. This prevents us from getting any relief or acknowledgement of the problem.
@11:33 PM. I use space heaters because the heat is so insufficient. I would prefer to not have to use them, but have no choice because the lack of heat is just so appalling and I have been hospitalized with pneumonia recently as a direct result of getting the flu and having no heat. First time I've been sick in years. I have complained my head off to maintenance and all they say is get a thermometer and let us send an engineer to your apartment. My thermometer read 60 degrees one morning and they still wanted to send an engineer. The fucking pipes and radiators were as cold as a Blackstone heart and the heat didn't come on for several hours after I complained. Either their heat system doesn't work as it should or they are deliberately denying us heat for whatever their evil reasons are.
Using a space heater doesn't affect the heat in other apartments unless yours is an apartment with the heat sensors. I know two people who have the sensors in their apartments and their apartments are always freezing cold. The sensors don't work and Management just won't admit it.
Just to note: the infractions of "the rules" continue. Not only have I seen uncovered mattresses on the loops, but I just saw a German Shepherd (that breed is banned in Stuy Town), being walked casually by his owner around the Oval. Obviously, no Stuy Town tag and the PS officer in the small guard booth never said a word. And just the other day I saw another dog, minus official ST dog tag, being walked out of Stuy Town by the dog's owner. So Management would "like" the rules to be obeyed, but the rest is BS.
STR, I think we all know by now that the only rule that Management will enforce is the one that says we have to pay our rent every month. No other rules matter. This once-desirable residential property is being driven down to the level of a slum. I believe that that is Blackstone's trademark when it comes to the properties it buys. Our Management is going by the Blackstone ethos and turning the place into a nasty, dirty slum. Even NYCHA enforces its rules concerning certain breeds of dogs. Our Management doesn't give a shit what happens here, just so long as the rents are paid. I think we would have been better off if we had been taken over by HUD.
I don't think Rick is a bad person. I think he means well. He will say that the heat gizmos in the building are all in order, temp is set right, etc., but I don't think he takes into consideration that in many of the apartments with sensors the sensors simply don't work. If the machinery that sends up the heat isn't getting the message from the sensors that it needs to send up heat, then it won't send up heat!
I know people who live in apartments with sensors and they are absolutely freezing. I also know someone who lives in an apartment with a sensor installed in it and she is sweltering and begging them to turn down the heat. The sensors are crap and Management would save itself a lot of time and bad PR and bad feelings from tenants if they would simply scrap the sensors and go back to the old system of sending up heat when it's cold enough for heat and judge by the outside temperature, not some faulty, failed sensor system that is useless!
It's a good job I don't have sensors in my apartment because I like to cook and when the oven is on the apartment gets very warm. Didn't the rocket scientists who installed this system think about that?
Since we're mostly paying half our salary to live here, perhaps fixing the windows and getting real ac would be nice. These sound like jet engines and produce no cold air in the summer. Help? Where is management on this as I'm about to post a huge stay away from this on my corporate employers website (50k employees)
Marshall is at it again defending management. On the TA site he gives a length explanation of the sensor system and denies that management is withholding heat.
I have no problems with the AC in the summer. After years without it is a pleasure to have it here. I do have a problem with lack of heat. My heat situation has fortunately improved of late but I see that others are still cold. And it is not the windows.
Liars. Management lies. Makes up stories, smiles at you as it lies about what is happening to you, what they are doing to you, to others. WHAT THEY ARE DOING TO HURT YOU.
I talk to many people who work here.
A group of people in the diner last year told me that "There is a Death Team" which goes into apartments of those tenants who die. They get in there faster than relatives of the dead tenant in order to clean it out. I heard it myself from an extremely distraught son whose father had died in an apartment here. It was infuriating and heartbreaking to hear how he'd been denied entrance to his father's home.
Last summer a trio of workers described to me how badly they (employees) are being hurt. Lately, I spoke with someone working here for 30 years who talked about the landscaping fiasco. (I, personally, care a great deal, because many non-human lives have been killed or hurt here - trees, squirrels, birds, grass, bushes. ALL lives matter.) He talked about the "bosses" here who have no idea what they are doing, lie, treat workers unfairly in terms of favoritism. I don't think he has any respect for many of the human vermin who live here these days either.
A day afterward I learned that some favored few have indeed received new windows. (Hint: it is not even likely that they pay rent, if you take my meaning.)
I learned that last year, particular buildings had heat problems as bad and worse than this year.
One example: a couple in their 90's pled for heat repeatedly, and it was denied to them. The employee here was quite specific and sure: something to the effect that management knows "old people need more heat; their bones can't take the cold." The previous day another employee had said straight out, "They (management) WANT PEOPLE TO DIE."
Of course, "We'll make your lives miserable, noisy, cold, chaotic, dangerous. We'll expose you to mold and maybe to cancer-causing substances, to deteriorating conditions, to the kinds of daily disturbances and sounds that will make sleep impossible and bring on mental difficulties, immune system failure, lethal diseases. We will wage psychological warfare against you. We'll lie. Some of us will enjoy your pain. Most of us in "higher positions" hope we can drive you out of your home. If your death occurs, partly as a result of our expanding and ceaseless actions, even better."
I'm one of the residents here who had no heat at all, or so little that it didn't matter for many weeks. All of the sudden, there is HEAT. As others have written, defective, drafty windows had NOTHING to do with whether there was comfort and safety in my home or not. Just HEAT denied or HEAT supplied.
Lily Tomlin is famously quoted: "No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up." Count me in.
The apologists for the phony Tenants Association are impotent and corrupt. Why would anyone listen to them? I wouldn't give them 50 cents let alone 50 dollars membership. Steinberg and that whole crew are really without shame. But when a photo op comes up, they are Johnny on the spot. No heat? No problem? "Just Call Rick" Truly vile, venal, self-serving parasites.
I dont live here but the stuy cafe has bad real bad food. Tried now a few times, coffee is gross, muffins are ok, cupcake ok, chicken is gross, hamburger too. For this price, they need to be ashamed.
We have no heat today because the outside temperature is in the 40s. It is still very uncomfortable indoors. These people are the absolute epitome of BLOODSUCKING PARASITES. They have no conscience, no soul and no empathy whatsoever. They remind me of a certain person with orange hair, but I know I can't go there.
Typical scum de la scum of the real estate industry.
It is people like you 4:15 that make it difficult for those cold tenants without heat. When I had minimal heat there was no solution. Of late , my heat has been better. My apartment is warm, maybe a bit too much but I am happy with that. Just open a window or put a fan on. The other alternative is worse.
Downstairs apartment getting rowdy again. Wonder if a new group of bros has moved in. Loud partying and pot smell lately. Maybe it is time to call security.
I firmly believe that the withholding of heat is a deliberate attempt to get rid of the elderly people. Elderly folk feel the cold so much more keenly than the young and they are more susceptible to illness brought on my being too cold. Their poor bodies can't fight off intense cold and whatever viruses and infections they come in contact with.
I firmly believe that this is a deliberate, murderous strategy by Management. I am surprised that there is no sympathy or help from our local politicians (though maybe I should be!), and I am disgusted at the total lack of concern on the part of the so-called TA.
dont live here but the stuy cafe has bad real bad food. Tried now a few times, coffee is gross, muffins are ok, cupcake ok, chicken is gross, hamburger too. For this price, they need to be ashamed.
Are you a Resident’s guest? If not, you have no business eating in 5 Stuy Cafe. Due to the zoning requirements and restrictions for the property, it’s supposed to be for Residents and their Guests only.
Just went down to the recycling room and couldn't believe my eyes. What with the Super Bowl celebrations and it being the churn time of the month, it was a horror. Don't know why anybody would want to work here as a porter, especially if they are treated like shit by this vile excuse for a management.
I will NEVER recycle again as long as we have this type of management and this type of "tenant." No one should have to cater to this type of filthy slob, i.e., the shit that lives here and the shit that owns/manages this dump.
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With ads like this, no wonder we have so many problems here with uncarpeted apartments and noisy neighbors. “Slick Rick” Hayduk should be ashamed of himself for allowing ads where so little of the floor is carpeted. He knows this sends the absolute wrong message to prospective tenants but allows these ads to run anyway. So sick of his fake concern about providing a good quality of life and all his deliberately, unenforced good neighbor policies. We’re under siege here in every direction — no carpeting, no heat, noisy outdoor events, irresponsible dog owners, etc, etc. etc. And we have a TA incapable or unwilling to fight for the tenants who elected them and effectively stand up to Hayduk and Blackstone’s destructive policies.
ReplyDeleteThe spin from Hayduk and Company is only good for a couple of cycles. If the wash still comes out wet and dirty, the spin is worthless.
ReplyDeleteShe is barefoot so that apartment must have good heat. False advertising?
ReplyDeleteThat so called TA keeps posting crap about Hoylman and other pols legislation. Address the heat, you phonies.
ReplyDeleteHayduk is worthless. He is the worst Manager we have ever had because he is such a DAMNED LIAR. He talks out both sides of his mouth. I wish they would just get rid of him.
ReplyDeleteI wish I knew somebody in the press or media who would run an expose on this place, covering the withholding of heat, the filth, noise, dog shit and piss, student shit and piss (and vomit) all over the place. Hayduk has turned the property into something akin to a NYCHA project. Maybe that's the mission he was charged with. I don't know. I do know that we are cold, miserable from sleepless nights caused by noisy, partying neighbors who wouldn't dream of carpeting their floors. The apartments above and below me are revolving-door units: one noisy bunch of shitters after another.
Has anyone field a complaint with the City over the lack of heat? I've heard that we get ignored, so I haven't bothered. Just have space heaters on 24/7. If it's true that we are being ignored, then we can safely assume that Management is greasing the right palms. Definitely need a New York Times piece about this dump.
ReplyDeleteI have many photos, and many others that I have not placed online. Any news organization is free to take one or more.
ReplyDeleteWhat is Blackstone getting out of running this place as an unheated slum? I don't see how it benefits them. So they nickel and dime us on heat, but the reputation they are earning - and which is spreading - is going to cost them more in the long run.
ReplyDeleteWhere is Powers when it comes to representing us? Where is the TA? Sorry that last one was a joke!
I hope Powers and DeBlasio don't run for office again because I will campaign against them and support ANYBODY who runs against them, even a repub. I heard DeB is mulling running for President. What a joke! He's be worse than the idiot we have now!
The problem with filing a 311 complaint with the City is that in due course they will send an inspector to your apartment to check your heat and if you have adequate heat on the day the inspector shows up, meaning heat that meets the City’s MINIMUM requirements, that will be the end of that.
ReplyDeleteThat’s the problem with the 311 system. Unless you live in NYCHA housing, which is notorious for its constant lack of heat problems and where when an inspector shows up you probably ARE likely not to have heat, you will get no help from the City with your heating problems in Stuytown or Peter Cooper Village. Because of how the 311 system works, Blackstone has us over a barrel and they know it. Our only realistic hope for help with the heating problems here is to go to the press.
There is a war on against the middle and working class. Whether it is the withholding of pay for the government workers who do the most important jobs keeping us safe or the scum at Blackstone making tenants go without heat during one of the bitterest spells of winter weather. America is being murdered by these people. I wish they could be sent back to where their forefathers came from and suffer the same indignities. Their forefathers didn't deserve such suffering; this breed do.
ReplyDelete""Slick Rick” Hayduk should be ashamed of himself for allowing ads where so little of the floor is carpeted. "
ReplyDeleteJust go by the First Ave. leasing office and take a look at the window promotion photos for our “oasis”. At best (and I’m being conservative here) 40% coverage. And that promotion truck has zero carpeting. See the comments section.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/31/realestate/cruising-for-renters.html?fbclid=IwAR3BDopJRyEktIWkrtGONcdze1gt6KHw5wmcWAn4ZWYG5DmUuqZG59IzX28
The problem here (I have pointed this out this out to Managements at various QOL meetings) is that with the dorm demo they love, roommates can change by the semester so even after pulling teeth to get an “inspection” (SPS does not do carpet inspections any more after a lease change, they are only respond via a tenant complaint to do a carpet inspection) that finally says (after the tenants/occupants lie and say they are in compliance) that they are in “compliance” (that is a joke in itself), the apartment reverts back to being in non-compliance with a roommate change. I have been dealing with this issue now for 10 years but, again, I will soon be asking for yet another meeting with management regarding an upstairs dorm apartment being in non-compliance after one NYU semester. Again. The usual, stomping, pounding, furniture moving, partying and Woo-Hooing noise level that reflects almost zero carpet compliance.
I have also asked at my last meeting why SPS does not provide carpeting (at the NYU graduate level apartments leased by NYU, carpeting is provided by NYU) for the student and the just post college apartments. These apartments are easily identified by the fact that their parents guarantee the lease. Their answer was the issue of bed bugs. After the last meeting, I should have bought up the fact if bed bugs are an issue in a carpeted environment, why are the hallways carpeted?
This s*** grows old, so tired of this, I have much better things to do.
And to make this blog more effective, again I ask people here to use their real name, as I do.
Ed Dunn. The many of us who have noisy, awful neighbors feel your pain.
ReplyDeleteAs for the bed bug excuse, you are absolutely correct to point out what nonsense and how invalid it is when the hallways are carpeted. Just more BS from Slick Rick and his team so they don’t have to address the problems here.
As for using my real name, sorry, but that’s not gonna happen. This is the one place where I can safely, because I can do it anonymously, say what I really think about what goes on around here without any fear of repercussions. I don’t trust Slick Rick and his minions. We’re owned by and they work for an investment firm that only cares about the bottom line and, as they have proven over and over in the short time they’ve owned this place, not about the tenants who live here. Noisy neighbors. Noisy events on the Oval. Not enough heat. Dog piss and sh-t everywhere on the property, inside and outside buildings. Not enough Public Safety officers patrolling the property. Little to no rules enforcement of any kind. If you needed proof that they don’t care about improving the quality of life for tenants, there it is. As for the TA, I’m fed-up with their inability to take on management effectively when necessary. Deep pockets Blackstone doesn’t want to give us adequate heat? Doesn’t want to abandon the obviously flawed heating sensor system that’s supposed to provide heat but doesn’t properly do that? Then the TA should be going to the press and calling attention to it. You would think we lived in a NYCHA project when you read on the TA’s FB page and the tenants’ FB page how many people are being deprived of heat here day after day. It’s absolutely outrageous.
Hoylman needs all the good publicity and cheerleading he can get. Trouble is looming on the horizon for our representative Senator beginning from the days he was the general counsel for the partnership for new York city through the crap deal we are stuck with today.
ReplyDelete"And to make this blog more effective, again I ask people here to use their real name, as I do."
ReplyDeleteIn the current Trumpian climate, which is polluted by the Blackstones of this world, it is safer to not use your real name. You could have the Stasi hounding you.
Bedbugs? What lying toads! That is no excuse whatsoever! At least they're admitting that the property is infested with bed bugs!
ReplyDeleteAt the risk of being accused of spouting "conspiracy theories," or being some "raving maniac," "crackpot," and so on:
ReplyDeleteThis country, and many other countries, are going down the drain, and taking the natural world with them for a whole variety of reasons.
Some of those reasons involve planned destruction, plunder, increased rape of Mother Earth, determination to colonize and ultimately terraform (destroy) other planets.
And some of the oldest reasons for the behavior of what some arrogant, foolish and pompous man termed "homo sapiens" ("man the wise"): greed, lust for power over others, determination to immortalize themselves, uncontrolled desire for all sorts of things, and insane resolve to CONTROL, CONTROL, CONTROL everything they can.
Blackstone is a collection of such misguided, deranged homo sapiens. They know exactly what they are doing by destroying these two 70 year old complexes. Money, greed, lust for control and power, "visions" of more "development" (destruction) and the like.
Advertising, public relations, and all of the attendant lying, fabrications, manipulation, psychological warfare, strategies to persuade people to accept, support and "buy into" their "mission," "vision" . . . and all of the garbage most of us accept and believe and LIVE BY because we are CONDITIONED TO DO SO.
Our politicians may or may not start off with good intentions and the sincere desire to help make life better for other people. Nearly all succumb to corruption. As a youngster, I worked in quite a few political campaigns and knew quite a few politicians. One left "public service" because he could not stomach the lying, selfishness, corruption. And what is that old expression? "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely."
So . . . this is why Blackstone's destroyers are what they are and do what they do. Those who work for them believe their lies, or persuade themselves of the truth of the lies. Or imagine themselves big, important, superior people involved with this huge, influential, most wealthy company. The politicians become their toadies and go to obscenely lavish and expensive parties, etc. The police and so many others are paid off and are corrupted by the rich, important, influential company. "Rich," etc. are used here in a sarcastic sense, of course.
I don't think it is hopeless by any means. But I do believe that those who are being badly injured by Blackstone and so many other companies need to open their eyes, ears, and minds, and realize that they are cooperating with their tormentors.
And then . . .
Unite and Stand Up and Fight
That thread on the New York Times discussion about AirBnB continues! I've been checking it every once in a while.
ReplyDelete"Just for the record, Blackstone has been withholding heat during this latest bitterly cold spell. People are using the thermometers that BS insists they have and they are recording at temperatures ranging from high fifties to low sixties, even during the daytime hours. They won't send up heat unless the complaining tenant allows an "engineer" to come up and inspect - any time up to 11 pm, even if you call early in the afternoon. Tenants are being harassed. I believe it is a ploy to make the people paying lower rent move out, but it is affecting those of us paying full market rate and we have no option but to be subjected to their despicable harassment any more than the rent stabilized tenants do.
ReplyRecommendShare"
Just returned from Chilean and Argentine Patagonia which is quite windy and cool. Everywhere I stayed was well heated. Even had to open windows. Always comfortable. Return to this slum and my bedroom is chilly. Reads 69, minimum heating.
ReplyDeleteCarpets? What carpets? Surely you jest.
ReplyDeleteEither Management has rented to a herd of elephants upstairs or Rick has installed a bowling alley as another "amenity".
Calls to Resident Services are worthless.
This place has truly become the "projects" at 10 times the rent.
Only a fool would pay market rate to live here.
We need is to GO TO THE PRESS about the lack of heat.
ReplyDeleteI had an engineer confirm to me that our heating problems derive DIRECTLY from the heat senor system and then he laughed and said at least it keeps him employed.
He acknowledged that if someone is cooking in their apartment or using space heaters, the sensor will think that apartment is warm and will NOT provide heat to other apartments. This is NOT acceptable.
Saw this on the alternative Tenants TA page:
ReplyDeletehttps://streeteasy.com/blog/nyc-renters-rights-heat-hot-water/?utm_swu=7430&utm_medium=email&utm_source=marketing_emails&utm_campaign=190122_Marketing_Email_Rentals_Avail_Feb1&fbclid=IwAR1CnzEq5Td3Im_HMlACN67JMZf6AiwwwwKodmeRAxPF9CkhRp4lAJNLuzk
They need to tear out the fucking sensors and go back to the way they used to provide heat. Is it going to take a law suit? An elderly person or baby dying? A fire from the electric heaters? Something horrific will happen sooner or later and Rick and his overlords will be tied up in lawsuits for the rest of their lives. I doubt Rick would ever be able to find another job in the hotel/apartment industry if a catastrophe occurred here on his watch. Who the hell would trust him? I know I wouldn't.
ReplyDeleteCannot believe the glowing letter to the editor T&V published Jan 10 raving about Hayduk and management. I guess this lady has a warm apartment. That T&Ac is definitely a management rag.
ReplyDeleteSomeone posted that there has ALREADY BEEN A FIRE CAUSED BY A SPACE HEATER.
ReplyDeleteDying people, fires, "something horrific" happening (11:19 AM) is EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANT HERE.
Lawsuits mean nothing to corporations like this. I am betting that the personnel "managing" us are indemnified against a lawsuit.
I don't believe enough of us are either knowledgeable or cynical or experienced enough to know the kind of monster Blackstone Group is. They are no different than thousands of companies all over the world who hurt people for a living. And are either allowed to do so, or outright encouraged by banks, governments, and more.
Catastrophes are routinely ENGINEERED or, if accidental, taken advantage of every day of the week by people such as Blackstone's founder and others.
"Power profits from disaster." Take a look at Naomi Klein's book, "Shock Doctrine." Read up about disasters around the world occurring either naturally or caused by various corporations and governments.
THIS (what we are living with - and it's getting worse) is normal and accepted BUSINESS PRACTICE.
Have you seen today's latest offering in the restaurant/hotel style plastic holders on the shelves near our mailboxes?
ReplyDeleteRegarding Winter Entertaining: if there is "noise" cranked out by your dear considerate neighbors, please call Public Safety IF THAT NOISE IS "UNREASONABLE AND SUSTAINED."
Oh, and yes, take into account the strictly limited "Quiet Times (Hours?)" (who the hell remembers this dreck?) when complaining, allowing latitude to destroy your peace, quiet, health during the Non-Quiet Times here. Be a GOOD NEIGHBOR.
Worse and worse. More and more punishing to residents who are not fine examples of human sewage. Prove that you have any right at all to quiet enjoyment of the home for which you pay monthly if you are not the jackasses manufacturing the noise.
WE WANT YOU ALL NERVOUS, SLEEPLESS, QUIVERING, NON-FUNCTIONAL WRECKS. WE WANT YOU SICK AND THEN WE WANT YOU GONE SO WE CAN FURTHER DESTROY YOUR APARTMENT TO RAISE THE RENT FOR SOME NEW ATM'S WE WILL MOVE IN.
I have made a point of asking EVERYBODY I run into in my building, outside on the street (so long as I know they live in Sty) and in Associated if their apartment is warm. The answer I mostly get is a resounding NO! A couple of people shrugged and said "It's bearable. Just!" The people I've asked range from young to old, Rent Stabilized and Market Rent. A few of the MR tenants have said they are looking forward to moving out, most of the RS tenants have all said they would if they could afford to. There seems to be a unanimous opinion that this withholding of heat is not just so the landlord can save a few pennies, but because the actually WANT people to be uncomfortable here. Many people are buying space heaters now and that makes the property more susceptible to fires. Add to that the fact that they have chopped up so many apartments and put in temporary walls and removed doors. I doubt that these units are as fire-proof as they used to be.
ReplyDeleteBlackstone is sure living up to its reputation of being an extremely abusive, perfidious landlord who deliberately makes tenants lives a misery. They probably want us ALL out and have other ideas for the property. I'm not moving to suit them no matter what they do. If they are genuine about wanting to attract new, high-paying tenants, they should be cognizant of the fact that the word is spreading far and wide about how miserable life is in this place with the noise, lack of heat and general "f*ck you" attitude of "Management."
It's a great pity that we do not have a tenants association here. Every other large residential development I know of has a TA. I wonder why we don't? That organization that likes to use the term "TA" really have no business doing so because they do absolutely nothing for tenants. Maybe used to, but not in the 20 years that I've lived here. I think that organization is a complete sham and just some sort of lobbying interest for certain politicians.
Depending when, the pipes are cold, and it's cold outside, too. Even when the pipes are hot, the poor quality of the windows let's in cold air and certainly cold wind. Some tenants are toasty warm. I'm not, neither are many tenants.
ReplyDeleteWhen the pipes are hot my apartment is hot. Today it was 77 in my living room. Miracle of miracles. Pipes hot all day.
DeleteI just checked. All of my pipes are cold. No heat coming up.
ReplyDeleteIs anyone else who lives in the stytown projects and who is in the unfortunate circumstance of needing a car seeing what's going on with citibike? We all just lost about another 10 parking spots due to citibike extending the racks on fist ave. Since I've moved into these projects over two decades ago I would say we've lost about 50% of the available spots. I can't be the only person who can't afford $500 per month for a garage space. Fortunately, for me, I'm only two years from retirement at which time I'll leave this slum, but it's sure going to be a long two years driving around in circles trying to park. I have nothing against citibike but when does this crap end?
ReplyDeleteI've noticed that the CitiBank bike racks are getting longer and longer. I don't own a car, but the writing seems on the wall: NYC does not want cars except those taxi services, like Uber, that riders pay for.
ReplyDeleteHow odd the heat has been on all day and it's a mild winter day. This past week it went to zero but we had no heat. Anyone care to comment ?
ReplyDeletewhy can't you afford to move out have you not saved up hundreds of thousand paying half as much as the rest of the city tenants?
ReplyDeleteSpoke with a heating engineer who told me that we will be getting new windows as soon as Management decides which one they want to install.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I won’t mind having new windows if they are actually efficient and do what they were meant to do, unlike the junk windows we have now and have paid for the last 20 years, I won’t be happy to be charged an MCI for the new windows.
Apparently, the NY State Legislature, which is now controlled by the Democrats, is working on doing away with the law that allows landlords to fold MCIs into our base rent FOREVER and we will only have to pay our share of the ACTUAL cost of the windows and not one penny more. At least that’s something to be thankful for.
>>How odd the heat has been on all day and it's a mild winter day. This past week it went to zero but we had no heat. Anyone care to comment ?<<
ReplyDeleteWell, for me it hasn't been on. And all my neighbors on the same line.
>>why can't you afford to move out have you not saved up hundreds of thousand paying half as much as the rest of the city tenants?<<
ReplyDeleteHa, ha. The answer, for most of us, is no.
Although the windows are crap, they are not to blame for heat problems as management insists. It is simply that they are providing less heat.
ReplyDelete"I've noticed that the CitiBank bike racks are getting longer and longer. I don't own a car, but the writing seems on the wall: NYC does not want cars except those taxi services, like Uber, that riders pay for."
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree STR, but that doesn't change the burden that the loss of all these spots produces. I remember in the late 90's how easy it was to park here. I used to pass spots to get one closer to my apt. I would gladly get rid of my car if I could.
"why can't you afford to move out have you not saved up hundreds of thousand paying half as much as the rest of the city tenants?"
ReplyDeleteThe city wasn't always as expensive as it is now and affordable housing was always as scarce as hen's teeth. A lot of people have lived pay-check-to-paycheck and, after raising kids and paying bills, putting food on the table, taking care of doctors and dentists bills, haven't been able to squirrel away hundreds of thousands. Asshole.
"Spoke with a heating engineer who told me that we will be getting new windows as soon as Management decides which one they want to install."
ReplyDeleteMy original guess was Just Call Rick's bonus this year would be directly linked to fuel cost savings realized via refusal to deliver adequate heat.
Since Black$tone's trademark is exploitation, a complex-wide window replacement scheme makes sense.
Manufacture a phony crisis refusing adequate heat, then launch an equally phony - "You asked. We listened. We responded." - P.R. campaign hyping massive, unnecessary MCI projects replacing windows, heating plant, etc.
Maybe Black$tone recently acquired a distressed window manufacturer to service the hundreds-of-thousands of distressed middle class homes it lords over?
>>The city wasn't always as expensive as it is now and affordable housing was always as scarce as hen's teeth. A lot of people have lived pay-check-to-paycheck and, after raising kids and paying bills, putting food on the table, taking care of doctors and dentists bills, haven't been able to squirrel away hundreds of thousands. Asshole.<<
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't say that last word publicly (for now), but as to the rest I agree 100%. I wonder when "the yellow-vest movement" will reach this country? It's the BS or indifference coming out of big companies, including Blackstone, that will be the cause a "yellow-vest movement" here.
Not sure I see anything that nefarious in replacing our old and absurdly inefficient windows which malfunctioned from the start. Our current windows were installed 1991-1994 and according to Fact Sheet #33: Useful Life Schedule for Major Capital Improvements from DHCR, they have met the number of years required to qualify for replacement and an MCI.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nyshcr.org/Rent/factsheets/orafac33.htm
I certainly hope that Blackstone is aware of the last window replacement debacle and doesn’t make any similar mistakes this time around. If they need a history lesson on what happened here, they should read this NY Times article for a start.
https://www.nytimes.com/1997/03/14/nyregion/met-life-tenants-win-4-million-in-suit-over-botched-windows.html
Not sure I see anything that nefarious in replacing our old and absurdly inefficient windows which malfunctioned from the start. Our current windows were installed 1991-1994 and according to Fact Sheet #33: Useful Life Schedule for Major Capital Improvements from DHCR, they have met the number of years required to qualify for replacement and an MCI.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nyshcr.org/Rent/factsheets/orafac33.htm
I certainly hope that Blackstone is aware of the last window replacement debacle and doesn’t make any similar mistakes this time around. If they need a history lesson on what happened here, they should read this NY Times article for a start.
https://www.nytimes.com/1997/03/14/nyregion/met-life-tenants-win-4-million-in-suit-over-botched-windows.html
What is yellow vest
ReplyDelete"Not sure I see anything that nefarious"
ReplyDeleteWe are talking about Blackstone.
"Blackstone" and "nefarious" are synonymous.
8:17. What is concerning is that they may try to blame the lack of heat on the defective windows. They immediately did that when the engineer came up even though for many years up until December, I had the same windows and plenty of heat. They immediately sealed my windows and there was only marginal improvement. When my pipes are hot, my apartment is comfortable. It is not the windows. It is the fact that they cut the heat to the bare minimum. It will just be another MCI. I would rather they just turn up the heat as they have in the past couple of days. That is what is nefarious. Blaming lack of heat on windows, then charging to change them.
ReplyDelete>>Not sure I see anything that nefarious in replacing our old and absurdly inefficient windows which malfunctioned from the start. Our current windows were installed 1991-1994 and according to Fact Sheet #33: Useful Life Schedule for Major Capital Improvements from DHCR, they have met the number of years required to qualify for replacement and an MCI.<<
ReplyDeleteThe windows are a sham and we are still paying for them. That's the problem.
>>What is yellow vest<<
ReplyDeleteRight now, the public protest is in France. Weeks running. Oddly, the protest is both right and left and against higher prices. The protests are wearing yellow vests.
And we will pay even more if Blackstone changes the windows.
ReplyDeleteBlackstone will change the windows, charge another MCI, raise the heat level next winter and tell us it was the fault of the windows. I have their number.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn’t matter whether you think Blackstone is nefarious or not and it doesn’t matter that we got screwed, which we absolutely did, paying for the windows we currently have. Our windows are 25+ years old and once they drilled holes in them - which they did almost immediately after they were installed, since so many of them were exploding - and released the insulating gas they contained, the windows became virtually useless in doing the job they were intended to do. So, like it or not, it’s hard to argue that our 25+ year old, crap windows shouldn’t be replaced at this point in time. According to DHCR Fact Sheet #33, Blackstone has the LEGAL right to replace the windows and it looks like that’s what they’re going to do. The reality is that no matter who our owner was they would probably do the same thing.
ReplyDeleteStuy Town Reporter said...
ReplyDelete>>Not sure I see anything that nefarious in replacing our old and absurdly inefficient windows which malfunctioned from the start. Our current windows were installed 1991-1994 and according to Fact Sheet #33: Useful Life Schedule for Major Capital Improvements from DHCR, they have met the number of years required to qualify for replacement and an MCI.<<
The windows are a sham and we are still paying for them. That's the problem.
====================================================
And, if they replace them, I'm pretty sure that the original MCI charge continues.
Blackstone is one of worst bloodsucking entities on the planet. Rick is Blackstone all the way through to the bone. Never trust or believe a word he says. He is Blackstone in The Flesh. Don't EVER trust him because you will do so at your peril.
ReplyDeletewhy can't you afford to move out have you not saved up hundreds of thousand paying half as much as the rest of the city tenants? >>>>>>>
ReplyDeleteMaybe you don't know this, but PCVST was built for returning WWII Veterans and middle-income people to live in dignity in a pleasant surrounding. Middle income people didn't make the kind of salaries that would enable them to save hundreds of thousand of dollars so that they could move out when the property was converted into an overpriced slum that only the higher income people could afford to live in. Get the picture?
They're going to separate meter all of us and we pay our own heat.
ReplyDeleteWouldn’t care as long as I got heat
DeleteI recently developed arthritis in my knees and ankles. My doctor recommended warm baths once a day. After two weeks, I got a terrible rash. So I go back to my Doctor and we discussed what I was doing differently. While I had started a new Med he thought I had contact dermatitis. This is a fungal inferection. Maybe it’s the baths I thought. I scrubbed my tub. The first time I went to take a bath again, I got the dreaded brown water. I took a sample to a water testing place and you guessed it the brown water had caused my infection. I’ve been in this building for over 20 years and have had this brown water sporadically. What a awful place for a senior to retire in. I hope no children get ill from the bath water either. FYI
ReplyDelete"They're going to separate meter all of us and we pay our own heat."
ReplyDeleteHow do you know this? New York City landlords are required by law to provide heat, included in the rent.
They could possibly submeter our electricity, but they would have to remove the portion of our rent that covers electricity.
And, if they replace them, I'm pretty sure that the original MCI charge continues.
ReplyDeleteJanuary 24, 2019 at 12:53 PM
CORRECT.
That’s how the VERY UNFAIR, ETERNAL GIFT TO LANDLORDS, MCI law was originally written and why the Democrats, now that they are in power, are looking to change the MCI law. Pray that they do, so we are no longer screwed in perpetuity every time DHCR approves one of Blackstone’s applications for an MCI.
2:03 PM: you should report this issue to the Board of Health. That water is a serious health hazard. This landlord doesn't do requisite routine maintenance and that raises a lot of concerns over health hazards here. The elderly, very young and people who are sick or have a compromised immune system are particularly at risk. Blackstone wouldn't care if the Black Death was rampant through the property so long as they could get away with not spending any money to remedy it! You have to remember that this company is all about money. Human life and health is of no concern to them. They are evil people with totally no consciences and we have to protect outselves.
ReplyDeletewhy can't you afford to move out have you not saved up hundreds of thousand paying half as much as the rest of the city tenants? >>>>>>>
ReplyDeleteI can afford to move out but at the rent I'm paying why would I? When they lower the heat I go to my vacation home that I bought with the money I saved. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to boast about how smart I have been over the last 50 years. That feels good. Gotta run, my chauffeur is downstairs.
The brown water is dangerous they 're just not telling us this.
ReplyDelete2:03 post -How did you treat this problem with your skin reaction to our water. Curious bc I have similar condition. Thanks .
ReplyDeleteI am wondering if we are in the early stages of a massive effort to aggressively push out hundreds, or even thousands of us. Just as Tishman Speyer did years back.
ReplyDeleteThe same lawyer who attempted to evict thousands of us then is writing letters to at least some of us who repeatedly demand heat.
Rather than supply needed sufficient heat, it is being withheld to many of us. This is not only illegal and evidence of lack of conscience, it is clearly designed to allow some of us (including infants and young children) to become physically ill, and perhaps worse. It is clearly designed to cause many of us to buy and use space heaters, which of course, could result in deadly fires. The same goes for those of us turning on stoves. Fires, possible deaths, horrendous injury, loss of possessions.
It is clearly designed to harass us into abandoning our homes so they can lure more people in for more money.
If we complain, they trot out inane and carefully rehearsed scripts about sensors, proprietary thermometers and set points. THEY IGNORE REQUESTS FOR HEAT.
At some point, they will seek to punish us for demanding heat by threatening us with eviction.
Intimidation tactics are being used now, different from that time period around 2007. But it makes sense that Blackstone is moving to attempt to evict us, or otherwise throw us out of our homes.
There has been an easily seen escalation in the creation and expansion of misery-inducing living conditions here since last Spring.
Think of the noise, filth, land and building destruction, increasing neutralization of the Security Officers, truly dangerous conditions of all kinds being multiplied here by Blackstone. Think of the mushrooming numbers of crimes, attempted crimes, suicides, strangers here with access to our buildings; think of the worsening hotel creation here; think of the incessant Public Relations doublespeak that is now BLAMING US FOR ATTEMPTED OR COMPLETED THEFTS, ASSAULTS, RAPES. Think of how warm weather public drinking of alcohol appeared last year, along with walls of marijuana smoke on the dark Oval during "movie night."
Think of the nearly incomprehensible numbers of students who just keep coming and coming.
I believe they've drastically stepped up the campaign to remove us from our homes.
"Manufacture a phony crisis refusing adequate heat, then launch an equally phony - "You asked. We listened. We responded." - P.R. campaign hyping massive, unnecessary MCI projects replacing windows, heating plant, etc."
ReplyDelete-----
January 24, 2019 at 8:17 AM
"Our current windows were installed 1991-1994 and according to Fact Sheet #33: Useful Life Schedule for Major Capital Improvements from DHCR, they have met the number of years required to qualify for replacement and an MCI.
http://www.nyshcr.org/Rent/factsheets/orafac33.htm"
-----
Note:
Blackstone's phony P.R. campaign hyping a massive, unnecessary MCI window replacement project commenced with a comment posted on STR by a TA Board troll on January 24, 2019 at 8:17 AM.
Window replacement isn't necessary, but can be justified pursuant to corrupt, REBNY puppet DHCR regs that make it legal.
Instead of protesting Blackstone's refusal to deliver adequate heat, the Vichy PCVST TA Board will welcome and applaud Blackstone's massive MCI window replacement project needlessly driving up rents in furtherance of Blackstone successfully executing Speyer's failed business plan to rake in multiple billion dollar windfalls pushing the historic PCVST middle class community out of their homes.
We also have a weekend home and it s the only way we get to heat in the winter. We moved here in 1979 though and have been in pc for a long time with issues. One has to be able to get away from this at times.
ReplyDelete“Blackstone's phony P.R. campaign hyping a massive, unnecessary MCI window replacement project commenced with a comment posted on STR by a TA Board troll on January 24, 2019 at 8:17 AM.”
ReplyDelete8:17 here. Here we go again with accusing a commenter of being a TA Board troll or working for Blackstone. That’s why this blog has some serious credibility issues. I’m not a TA Board troll and I’m certainly not working for Blackstone, but believe whatever you want. Don’t let THE FACTS get in your way.
FACT: Blackstone is going to install new windows because they are LEGALLY allowed to and any owner would probably do the same.
FACT: The TA is POWERLESS to stop Blackstone from installing new windows and applying for an MCI.
At the very least the MCI we are still paying for the current defective windows should end . Are we going to pay 2 MCIs for windows including one for windows that are so bad that they have to be replaced
DeleteThe TA is despicable. I am sick of their political posts ignoring the heat issue and when they do address it, they tell us it is our responsibility,
ReplyDeleteJust read on the TA site where a NYC inspector questioned a resident concerning the lack of heat. She said no comment. Maybe she has adequate heat and did not want to give the impression that others do too. But she reads this blog. At least they are inquiring. Maybe she is afraid. In any case, not a good thing for us.
ReplyDeleteNo heat, section 8 , air bnb, students rule, filthy mattresses and garbage. Thanks Garodnick, Hoylman, Kavanagh and de Blasio. And a special thanks to that sham of an organization which calls itself a TA. You turned us into a slum.
ReplyDeleteIf a landlord has to distribute thermometers, there is definitely something wrong. Ludicrous.
ReplyDeleteI live in an apartment that gets sporadic heat, never enough to keep the rooms warm and long periods of no heat at all. It gets very chilly! A co-worker lives in a different building (somewhere on 14th Street) and he tells me that his first-floor apartment actually has sensors in the living room, but the heat is never on and his apartment is freezing! So much for the efficacy of the sensors! We don't mind coming to work because at least we can be warm from 9 to 5!
ReplyDeleteI think everyone should be aware that the TA Facebook page is carefully monitored by Management, so unless you are going to write something positive and complimentary about Management, just don't go there! Big Brother is a reality here!
I really don’t care if they read it.They need to know we are miserable. At least they respond with temporary heat when they read the complaints.
Delete>>Here we go again with accusing a commenter of being a TA Board troll or working for Blackstone. That’s why this blog has some serious credibility issues.<<
ReplyDeleteAnd again, here we go with the credibility charge. Do know that I am not passing through every comment. Do know, again and again, if you have serious problems with this blog, you can make your own and post away. It is free.
“The same lawyer who attempted to evict thousands of us then is writing letters to at least some of us who repeatedly demand heat.“
ReplyDeleteWhat?! Can you please tell us what these letters say?
Actually if you read through your MCI DHCR packet on the last window installment it was challenged by tenants on the First Ave Loop buildings and the TA lawyer. The previous landlord installed faulty windows. Should we get charged for fixing a deliberate mistake by the former landlord in a window scam? Maybe we should get the name of the last contractor who installed and manufacturer company who made the windows we have now and get our money back!
ReplyDelete"Are we going to pay 2 MCIs for windows including one for windows that are so bad that they have to be replaced"
ReplyDeleteActually, the existing windows that we are paying an MCI for have been bad from the get-go. We should never have been charged an MCI for them because they were defective when they were installed.
Remember, people, those defective windows were installed by benevolent(?) Met Life. If new windows are really installed in the future,
ReplyDeleteit will be by malevolent Blackstone--with or without Slick Rick around.
At the very least the MCI we are still paying for the current defective windows should end . Are we going to pay 2 MCIs for windows including one for windows that are so bad that they have to be replaced.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, that’s how the current MCI law works. The MCI law as it stands now was a HUGE GIFT to landlords and one of the most unfair, hostile to tenants laws ever passed in this state. You can thank Republicans for that.
We will pay for the windows we currently have IN PERPETUITY, meaning FOREVER. The MCI for them got folded into our base rent a long time ago and will stay there for eternity or until our buildings are no longer standing.
Everything has a lifespan, including windows. According to DHCR, at 25+ years old ours have reached their useful life and can now legally be replaced and MCI’d UNLESS the Democrats, who are now in power in the NY State Legislature, abolish the MCI law entirely, which they have said they want to do. On the other hand, Governor Cuomo, that fake Democrat and no friend to tenants, might be OK with just doing away with the forever part of the MCI law. We’ll know what happens by June 15, 2019 when the NY State rent laws come up for renewal.
Here’s an article from just a few days ago on this very topic: https://therealdeal.com/2019/01/22/new-york-landlords-rush-rent-hikes-ahead-of-housing-reforms/
There's an article about heat complaints in NYC in T&V. It makes a brief (very brief) mention of PCVST. Absolutely ignores the current situation of so many of us going without heat this winter. That rag is DEFINITELY controlled by Management. Will never again renew my subscription. In fact, I'm going to see if I can cancel it and get a refund on the balance.
ReplyDelete2:27 PM - "what these letters say:"
ReplyDelete1. The letters basically accuse tenants of bothering "them" - I am being intentionally vague here.
2. WILL PEOPLE WHO HAVE RECEIVED THESE LETTERS PLEASE JUST LET US KNOW HERE ON THIS BLOG?
3. This is a common tactic. The term is: "The best defense is a good offense." In this case, it is a shameful tactic of "offense." Truth, HEAT, and a 'fessing up, or coming clean about what the hell they've been doing to us would be lovely.
Of course, we're going to pay for defective windows, and the next, likely defective, windows.
ReplyDeleteIF we choose to pay for them rather than say, "thank you, but if it's all the same to you, I think I'll just pass on this."
January 24, 2019, 2:03 PM:
ReplyDeletePerson with arthritic knees and ankles: massaging peanut oil into those joints might help. Also, lots of movement supposedly helps arthritis sufferers.
Would you consider posting the exact results of the test of the brown water?
My bathtub ran brown water this morning.
I just watched (again) PBS's "Park Avenue: Money, Power & The American Dream."
ReplyDeleteFIND IT ON PBS OR NETFLIX. I posted the URL elsewhere on the blog. Request it and I'll repost it.
THE PSYCHOPATHS LACKING ANY CONSCIENCE, MORALS, ETHICS ARE SPOTLIGHTED HERE.
OUR "OWNER," STEPHEN SCHWARZMAN, IS FEATURED.
AS IS OUR SENATOR, CHARLES SCHUMER.
WATCH IT CAREFULLY, PLEASE.
These monsters are what we are suffering under.
Anyone for yellow vests? Anyone for resisting their vile actions???
Anyone for eviction? Do not see the comparison between ST and France. We do need lawyers and a real TA. Resistance here will go nowhere
Delete"I can afford to move out but at the rent I'm paying why would I?"
ReplyDeleteBecause as much as you despise yourself, there is still a little self love down there somewhere? Because as little self respect that you have, you still have some? Because you don't want to live in a slum, at any price? I'm trying here!
"The TA is despicable. I am sick of their political posts ignoring the heat issue and when they do address it, they tell us it is our responsibility,"
ReplyDeleteIndeed, they are a morally reprehensible lot. Go ahead, give 'em fifty bucks, they need your help!
Rent checks late again. Other people with late rent checks?
ReplyDeleteLast month they were late for some of us.
Is this a pattern? Deliberate? Targeted?
Got mine
DeleteI couldn't find that documentary on Netflix or PBS. I could only find it on Amazon Prime and I don't subscribe to that channel. :-(
ReplyDeleteI don't want to jinx myself, but we are getting such great heat today! My apartment (which is usually like a fridge) is so toasty that I am kvelling! I wonder if Rick went away for the weekend, so his minions are amping up the heat a little out of compassion and mercy for those of us who have been suffering so much this winter. I hope Rick doesn't read this blog because if he does he may have some people beheaded for giving us heat this cold weekend. (Normally, "Management" doesn't care how cold it is, they stick to their 60something credo and NOTHING MORE and ZERO after 8 pm!). Bastards!
ReplyDeleteForget the brown water coming out of the tap.
ReplyDeleteHow about the brown turd in the hallway and stairwell?
January 25, 2019 at 9:19 PM Let's screen t at the Oval Movie night and put it on our televisions too. Then we can put our televisions facing out our windows screening the PBS Schumer Schwarzman movie so all passersby can get a glimpse and maybe get some newspaper to cover the complex wide Oval Movie screenings. The Tenant Association Board President Susan and Treasurer - Blackstone dealmaker can even get their photo taken for the Schumer -Schwarzman StuyTown Movie night screenings. Now that would be a worthwhile publicity effort to get the truth out about a complex called StuyTown.
ReplyDeleteI certainly am in favor of legalizing marijuana.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that the odor of weed is omnipresent throughout my building.
Is it really necessary for a group of college bros to sit outside on the terrace level stairs smoking pot?
Show a little class and respect your neighbors.
With the legalization it will get much worse hete
DeleteI could only find that documentary on Amazon Prime (which I don't subscribe to). Couldn't find it on Netflix or PBS app.
ReplyDelete>>Is it really necessary for a group of college bros to sit outside on the terrace level stairs smoking pot?
ReplyDeleteShow a little class and respect your neighbors.<<
I don't know if this is a joke or not.
>>I don't want to jinx myself, but we are getting such great heat today!<<
ReplyDeleteMaybe the heat is coming up for you, but it certainly is not for me and, I would assume, others.
I have been out of the house a lot but in general my heat was better yesterday and last night.
DeleteWhy would I move with the cheap rent I have.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the thing with Schumer and Schwartzman? Were they having sex in the movie? Wouldn't be surprised. Schumer reminds me of a snake oil salesman.
ReplyDelete">>I don't want to jinx myself, but we are getting such great heat today!<<
ReplyDeleteMaybe the heat is coming up for you, but it certainly is not for me and, I would assume, others."
None today. I guess I did jinx myself. Maybe Hayduk came back and told them to turn it off - how dare they make tenants comfortable! Woke up freezing this morning.
I hate this place. If I could afford to move out I would be out in a flash. I would've been out here years ago (when TS took over) if I could afford it. I despise the people who own and run this place and I despise the vile so-called "Tenants Association." They should disband and go away. Better yet, they should be exposed and sent to jail.
THIS COMPLEX HAS THE RUDEST FUCKING TENANTS IN THE ENTIRE CITY. NO FUCKING RUGS.
ReplyDeleteI also am receiving NO heat today.
ReplyDeleteThe documentary on Schwarzman, Schumer, and similar s.o.b.'s, "Money, Power, and The American Dream" is on PBS, our channel 13:
ReplyDeletehttp://www/pbs.org/independentlens/films/park-avenue/
CORRECTION:
ReplyDeleteThe URL is correct. The name of this superb and detailed description of what we are dealing with:
PARK AVENUE: MONEY, POWER & THE AMERICAN DREAM
This resident wouldn't let the "bros" sit outside smoking dope. Security? Maybe.
ReplyDeleteI have the ability to get myself out to where they are smoking and I have the ability to communicate, verbally, in English.
WHY IS ANYONE OBSERVING THIS SITTING QUIETLY?
How about speaking the word: NO. ??????????
Movie Night: Park Avenue: Money, Power & The American Dream
ReplyDeleteStarring Stephen Schwarzman and Charles Schumer
is a wonderful idea.
Thank you!
No, no heat is coming up for you and others.
ReplyDeleteBUT: Is an engineer up there right now verifying that you are beneath the Almighty set-point?
AND: Before the engineer arrived, did you do the following at least one hour before their arrival in order that "accurate" readings utilizing a laser device could be made:
Turned off your single or multiple space heaters?
Ceased using your oven for warmth in the apartment your landlord declares is toasty and comfortable and safe?
Thoroughly doused your fireplace embers, your campfire embers and your bonfire embers which have been providing your only source of warmth?
Once all of these listed and other forms of warmth you may have been forced to employ are completely dead, and you are now operating cold storage for modest fees, then an engineer will grace your home and declare that all is well, and your sacred Ambient temperatures in each room are reading tropical.
This is the link to the PBS program about our Overlords. You can watch in the computer.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.pbs.org/independentlens/films/park-avenue/
I just watched the PBS documentary. What totally vile people. UnAmerican and just plain hideous.
ReplyDeleteWalls are paper thin.
ReplyDeleteNo carpeting in the apartment directly above.
Minimal heat.
Carriage room filled with garbage.
Is this the "projects"?
No it's Stuytown.
Thanks Susan Steinberg and the Tenants Association for doing nothing.
The party’s over. No heat tonight. Rotten slumlords.
ReplyDeleteSchumer and Schwarzman
ReplyDeleteHere is more on Schumer and his sleazy ways. He undermined this community by selling our homes right out from under us and got himself very rich along the way. He even undermines his peers in government stealing their ideas to advance himself. We all know smarmy, manipulative, dishonest people like that where we work who take credit for our work. We do not need that sleaze tactic in our homes and families.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/campaigns/keyraces98/stories/ny100598.htm
No wonder Schwarzman's office never returned my email. Despite Stuy Town being a valued property for Blackstone, the residents here are considered peons.
ReplyDeleteThere is a Schwarzman College and Schwarzman Scholars. And guess which country and its peoples are now the focus? If you said the United States and Americans, you lose. Big time.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.schwarzmanscholars.org/
Are they planning to put a hotel near the rink, near the oval? Rumor has it.
ReplyDeleteWho would stay at a hotel in this dump?
DeleteMaybe a welfare hotel. Sounds like something that they would do.
DeleteNo.
ReplyDeleteYou know it's winter in stuytown cooper cuz your flat is full of cigarette smoke. Not because you my friend are a smoker, your neighbors are. Come rent here if you smoke indoors and want your neighbors and their children to get cancer.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteSchumer and Schwarzman are close socially and in business. This is old news.
They built the CUNY dorms in Peter Cooper Village while they were building the Staten Island NYU CUNY dorms in 2013.
They were supposed to break ground in Peter Cooper Village around 2013 as another attempt at building luxury condos but that went nowhere (the 2013 and previous attempts made all failed for some reason).
A lot of construction workers expected work in Peter Cooper Village that did not happen.
Our representative Chuck Schumer and his wife who holds various New York City positions from Department of Transportation to Vice Chancelor NYU CUNY installed the transient housing that includes dorms and AIRBNB.
Everyone knows Schumer's wife Iris Weinshall is behind construction of the NYU CUNY student dorms, meeting rooms and StuyTown gym that took over Peter Cooper Village.
Schumer's wife Iris Weinshall is head of once iconic now generic event party space The New York Public Library which has Steve Schwarzman's name on it courtesy Schumers. When it comes to Schumer, it is a family business and one that is making the Schumers very wealthy and the billionaires they court much more wealthy.
"Iris Weinshall resigned from DOT to take the role of Vice Chancellor of the City University of New York. Her field was Facility Planning, Construction, and Management. Weinshall’s duty was to oversee the planning, building and the maintenance of physical structures on behalf of the university."
https://pandagossips.com/posts/1939
“With 170,000-square-feet and 454 beds between them, the buildings are serving a variety of student living options,” said Iris Weinshall, CUNY vice chancellor for facilities planning, construction and management.
With lounges, meeting rooms, and a state-of-the art fitness center, “it has everything students need and feel to be at home at this school,” she added.The pace of construction after ground was broken in March 2012 was touted at the event — especially since the target opening of the dorms didn’t change in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy."
http://www1.cuny.edu/mu/forum/2013/10/05/new-dorms-at-the-college-of-staten-island-create-a-new-world-for-student/
Airbnb rules in Stuyvesant Town!
ReplyDeleteI see "wheelies" all the time, out-of-towners pushing luggage asking "Ou est l'Ovale?" (Where is the Oval) in French and other languages.
It would be humorous except...THIS ISN'T A HOTEL.
I hadn't noticed this until I read it on this blog, now I can't stop noticing it. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI'm referring to the helicopter noise. So far today at least 4 takeoffs or landings have occurred and it's not even 9:30. There was helicopter noise at 2:30 A.M. but I'm not sure that was a landing/takeoff or just a flyby. Has Keith Powers been kidnapped? He is surely, M. I. A. at the least. WTF?
Mayor di Blasio appears on the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC radio — 93.9 FM and 820 AM — pretty much every Friday at 10am. Unfortunately, because of the kind of job I have, I’m not available at that time to call in to the show and let di Blasio know what’s going on here with the lack of heat and ask him what he can do to help us, but I hope that someone reading this will. The WNYC phone number is (212) 433-9692.
ReplyDeleteI’m well aware that di Blasio was in favor of Blackstone buying PCVST and spoke at the press conference announcing the sale to Blackstone, but that shouldn’t stop anyone from calling in. Let everyone listening to WNYC, which is lots and lots of people, and the station itself with its many reporters know what’s going on here. Maybe di Blasio will be embarrassed or concerned and actually try to help us. Even if that doesn’t happen, it will get the word out that we are in trouble here.
We need to make Blackstone’s inability or unwillingness to provide us with adequate heat and their endangerment of our health known everywhere we can. In addition to calling, which I hope someone will do, anyone with a Twitter account, which I don’t have, can use the Twitter hashtag #askthemayor to ask a question or make a comment. Brian and/or his staff monitor that Twitter feed during the show.
Again, there is no hotel being built here or the intention to build a hotel. Where would it be built anyway? Please....
ReplyDeleteSchumer has always been a sleazy, dirty politician. I would never vote for him under any circumstances. Neither will I vote for that Gillibrand woman who he forced onto us. As for Keith Powers, he is always MIA when it comes to PCVST issues - except when there's a photo-op and some glad-handing. I would rather vote for "the other side" than vote for any of the above-mentioned, or maybe just not vote at all.
ReplyDelete"Because as much as you despise yourself, there is still a little self love down there somewhere? Because as little self respect that you have, you still have some? Because you don't want to live in a slum, at any price? I'm trying here!"
ReplyDeleteSorry, but complete fail. Loving life, like self, tons of self respect. This is nothing more than a place to lay my head before I'm off to someplace else. Although I'm generally in the city 5 days a week I'm also generally not in the PIG STY more than 1 to 2 waking hours per day. That's mostly showering and getting ready to leave, so under $1500/month for an old fashioned 2 bedroom seems fair to me.
Regarding the mayor:
ReplyDeleteDuring the worst heat problems, occurring while we were braving bitterly cold wind and temperatures the last holiday weekend, I tried a couple of phone numbers for the mayor's office, left my name, number, details.
AND WHADDYA GUESS HAPPENED? ANY RESPONSE WHATEVER???
Zip. Zilch. Nada. Nuthin'
The only interest he has in ST is finding a home for city subsidized. He is partly responsible for this awful Blackstone deal.
DeleteFire in an apartment at 11 Oval. I wonder if it was caused by a space heater as a result of these nickel-nursing jerks withholding heat?
ReplyDeleteYou may never know. Management and T&V will cover it up.
DeleteRegarding the mayor:
ReplyDeleteDuring the worst heat problems, occurring while we were braving bitterly cold wind and temperatures the last holiday weekend, I tried a couple of phone numbers for the mayor's office, left my name, number, details.
AND WHADDYA GUESS HAPPENED? ANY RESPONSE WHATEVER???
Zip. Zilch. Nada. Nuthin
But Brian Lehrer’s show is a VERY PUBLIC FORUM in which to report what’s going on here. Even if you don’t want to call or tweet, I hope that someone else will.
Many of my neighbors are using space heaters.
ReplyDeleteJust a matter of time before there is a fire.
Space heaters are inherently unsafe but, hey, you have to stay warm.
The nickel and dime ghouls who run this place are beneath contempt.
Where the Fu*k is the Tenants Association?
UNBELIEVABLE.
Can anyone tell me why brown water is coming out of my bath tub faucets???
ReplyDeleteI just moved in ( at an outrageous rent I may add ) and I've never seen this before.
And the walls are really paper thin.
I can hear everything next door. And I mean everything if you know what I mean.
I think I made a really bad choice.
Oh well, I have to tough it out for the next two years.
Then I'm out of here.
You did make a bad choice. I am sorry. I think the reputation of this place is spreading and potential renters are seeing beyond the phony PR. They cannot rent many of these market rate apartments. That is why you see so many students packed into apartments here.
DeleteHeating issues?
ReplyDeleteThe real test will come later in the week when temps plumemet?
Pump up some heat!
https://nypost.com/2019/01/28/uws-tenants-new-homeless-residents-are-making-life-a-living-hell/
ReplyDeleteSounds a bit familiar.
I am so sick of Peter Stuyvesant (aka TA) posting photos of local politicians and their bills passed. DO SOMETHING to help the people you represent with their heat problems. I can care less about Hoylman who was all in favor of this Blackstone takeover.
ReplyDeleteDeBlasio has been a curse on this City from the very beginning of his reign. Lazy, uncaring and corrupt. I hope he disappears as soon as his current term is over.
ReplyDeleteI agree, but he has won the mayoral elections by large margins
DeleteHoylman takes care of people with 'special' needs--like himself--first.
ReplyDeleteThe same garbage had also appeared in T&V.
Under Founder Hagedorn, no Democratic Party politician was ever given 'positive' coverage therein.
And in those days, few Democrats ever won local office.
Just wait until the NY State Legislature legalizes recreational marijuana, which Assembly Member Harvey Epstein says they’re likely to do this year in an opinion piece he wrote in T&V. The HORRIBLE STENCH of marijuana spreading to neighboring apartments and into our hallways is bad enough in PCVST as it is, but, once it’s legal, it will be even worse here and there won’t be a single thing anyone can do about it. At least now, it’s a lease violation. The quality of life in this city gets worse every day. Especially here in PCVST, where so many of us already have to put up with apartments that don’t get enough heat, noisy neighbors, almost no enforcement of any of the supposed rules, etc., etc., etc.
ReplyDeletehttps://town-village.com/2019/01/28/opinion-epstein-get-involved/
I agree that the legalization of pot will cause problems in ST/PC. If the students can smoke it out in the open the buildings will stink. Even now the nauseating smell often fills the elevator and hall. It will be disgusting.
ReplyDeleteStuyTown has low level quality of life problems from pot to hazardous illegal hotels because our politicians are in business with the real estate developers of the Lower East Side, Gramcery, Union Square and the West Village.
ReplyDeleteSenator Hoylman's husband's family is Tishman Speyer construction of NYU dorms.
Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh's family works for Taconic Hedge Fund (developers of massive lower east side project that will reap fortunes with neighboring property values rising alongside from LES to Gramercy to the Hudson River).
Schumer's wife construction of CUNY dorms
The conflicts of interest are grotesque and glaringly evident. The dirtiest hands are probably Kavanagh and that says something when the others on the list are Hoylman and Schumer. Taconic Hedge Fund is as ruthless as Blackstone.
This community did not and does not stand a chance of surviving with a Tenant Association that promotes politicians in business with developers like Blackstone, NYU and Taconic.
Residents smoke pot with impunity in and out of their apartments.
ReplyDeleteIt is defacto legal in Manhattan already courtesy of DA Cyrus Vance's edict not to enforce simply ignore.
For Management to suddenly begin to issue Lease Violations would open up a can of worms they surely don't want to do.
It is only a matter of time before marijuana becomes legal in New York State.
Tremendous potenetial revenue involved.
Look at revenue New Jersey derived from in-state sports betting.
Gambling and marijuana are truly cash cows!
Thank you to the person who posted the documentary on Chuck Schumer, Steve Schwarman Blackstone, Paul Ryan and David Koch.
ReplyDeleteOur politicians are bought and paid for by our landlord.
The documentary compares the access to opportunities of residents of Park Avenue both on the Upper East Side and in the South Bronx.[1][2][3] It draws upon Michael Gross's book 740 Park: The Story of the World's Richest Apartment Building, which showed that many billionaires live in that building.[1] It goes on to explain that billionaire heir David Koch made significant donations to Paul Ryan in the same way that banker Steven Schwartzman lobbied Charles Schumer—for their own gain.[1] The documentary includes interviews with a doorman at 740 Park Avenue, journalist Jane Mayer, Yale University Professor Jacob Hacker, University of California, Berkeley Professor Paul Piff, and Republican advisor Bruce Bartlett.[3]
I agree, but he has won the mayoral elections by large margins
ReplyDeleteOnly 10 percent of eligible voters actually voted in the last election for mayor in NYC.
Speaking of freezing, why does management have these idiots using leaf blowers and cutting branches offf trees, old and young, right before the coldest weather in a decade. The incompetence is unrivaled here. It’s like they want everything to die. They spend money on the grounds only to spend money to hire incompetent idiots to kill everything. Management sucks.
ReplyDeleteGoing to get real cold today and tonight.
ReplyDeletePipes are cold already.
We'll see if the scum who present themselves as Management will pump up the heat when temps get into the single digits.
I wouldn't count on it.
Taconic Hedge Fund was an employer of some (many? one) of our Blackstone employees here.
ReplyDeleteYou are very welcome for the posting of the PBS documentary, PARK AVENUE: MONEY, POWER, etc. (part of a series on POVERTY in our glorious nation of equality, democracy, humane behavior).
The information about Kavanagh is particularly illuminating, and disturbing, to me. Some years back, I went to his office with an exceedingly serious problem. His staff refused to ever grant me access to him and I was told I could not be helped.
The problem? Well, here those who can do harm to us are trying to either outright push us out of our homes and/or harass us, making our homes places of pain instead of refuge. Employers, particularly government employers, do the same in our workplace, causing us to be ill in diverse ways, and causing us to be without jobs, money, health care, etc. Politicians perform the same functions.
I went to Kavanagh because of what was to me mindboggling corruption and collusion among a (a) private company, (b) The New York City Department of Education, and (c)NYS State Unemployment folks. It included the suborning of perjury, openly, by an attorney of a witness who was clearly being "incentivized" to lie about something he had no knowledge of or involvement with. The lawyer himself was clearly ordered to substantially and seriously interfere in a matter which was outside of his authority.
What is the word? Clusterf**ck?
I had such hopes that the estimable Mr. Kavanugh would assist me. No way.
Keith Powers and Harvey Epstein were to follow in his footsteps years later when I (and others here) appealed to them for help.
I am informed that Judge Judy asks: "How do you know a teenager is lying?" Answer: "Their lips are moving." Regarding politicians, it is so much worse and damaging.
Although my heat situation is generally and I say “generally” better, I had to call this morning after five hours of cold pipes. I cannot stand it when my bedroom is 68 and the engineer tells the rep that others in my line are at 72. How does he know that? Plus many tenants are not home or do not care. They did pump the heat up considerably. So they can put it up when they want to. This rep happens to be very nice and helpful.
ReplyDeleteI agree about Kavannagh and Hoylman being of no use at all. I approached them with an issue and got an unsatisfactory response.
ReplyDeleteSince Hayduk arrived, the property and quality of life has gone downhill at an alarming rate. The withholding of heat and pegging it to 68 - 72 degrees is one example. 68 degrees is not in any way comfortable in these drafty old thin-walled buildings and in many apartments it doesn't even get as high as 68. The grounds have become dirty and neglected and the demographic of students and transients has exploded.
ReplyDeleteI think he was sent in by Blackstone to drive out the demo of folks who call this place home. Either that, or he is thoroughly incompetent and misanthropic. I just wish he would go away and they would put a caring and competent manager in his place. Caring and competent people are probably rather thin on the ground at Blackstone.
You are not going to get a “caring and competent “ manager from Blackstone. Don’t you understand that they give Hayduk his orders. He does not control the heat or the policies. He is told what to do.
DeleteThe problem with this weather is that all of the dog piss now freezes and creates these slip zones. Be careful!
ReplyDeleteFor the twentieth time, RICK HAYDUK DOES NOT act on his own. He may be a phony hypocrite, but he is PA man and takes orders from higher up. He is not responsible for the deterioration of the property. BLACKSTONE is.
ReplyDeleteKavanagh's father is a retired Transit NYPD Chief who worked in Brooklyn and the family is from Staten Island. He knows better then to have his son and grandson involved with the likes of Taconic and Blackstone's ruthless, immoral ways.
ReplyDeleteYou could plug in New York politicians names into this story to see how the New York pay to play real estate politicians are getting richer while the constituents are getting poorer. Same game, different city, same players including Blackstone. NY City Hall and City Council is as corrupt. Someone just posted StuyTown landlord and mega NYC developer Blackstone Tony James manipulating the upcoming Mayors race interfering with the election to rig the outcome. Anyone remember who the commentor said he was pushing to run? DeBlasios affordable housing plan with Glen, city council economic development corporation and city councilman zoning commission run the same scams with developers in NY as the Chicago scams to make the politicians look like heroes when really they are making themselves economically and politically richer, us poorer.
ReplyDelete"Some candidates for mayor of Chicago should begin memorizing the following line:
To the best of my knowledge, at this point in time, I can’t recall.
That’s what politicians say when they’re under federal investigation and asked bothersome questions.
And right now, the feds are crawling all over City Hall. They’ve charged longtime and powerful Ald. Edward Burke, 14th, with extortion. They’ve wired Ald. Danny “Viagra” Solis, 25th, for sound. According to an affidavit reported on by the Chicago Sun-Times, Solis received Viagra and illegal favors at massage parlors in exchange for his efforts at City Hall."
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/kass/ct-met-mike-madigan-danny-solis-kass-20190129-story.html
Observation:
ReplyDeleteOver the past many months, and especially very recently, I've had the opportunity to see WHO it is walking into Residential Services on the First Avenue Loop, WHO, that is, who is not a tenant.
How shall I characterize them? SUITS, which long ago became a pejorative and fairly nasty descriptive for many people. Corporate, oligarchy, kleptocracy, hierarchy, paternalism, imperialists, colonialists, fascists, feudal lords, invaders, those who rape, pillage and plunder land, and other people and life forms. Those who steal, take, impose their wills upon others. Read history. Read what used to be called in school, "Current Events."
To them, everything in life is for sale, has a price, is to be consumed, sold, advertised, packaged, distorted, used for the immediate or ultimate desires of their small, greedy selves.
They are the same predatory, emotionally dead animal that the STR himself described walking around the Oval last year and exclaiming about its usefulness as "a great resource."
I've not seen them ever walking alone; they travel in packs of predators - beyond self-assured - smug and self-satisfied - and here for no good for us. I've yet to witness them contaminating Stuyvesant with their presence in groups any smaller than two, and often much larger.
More distressingly, the only responses I've witnessed "Stuytown" employees display when they appear is something that appears to me to be fear. Maybe panic. Maybe fully developed cases of "nerves."
The theory I often fall back on is substantiated by the fear I observe them elicit. I would suspect that they absolutely terrorize their underlings. Period. Maybe the people running Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village have convinced themselves that Blackstone is a worthwhile, honorable, honest employer and the like. If so, it is only for survival. Because the Suits that walk around here are ugly, very dangerous and vicious predators who destroy homes, land, health, peace, lives of people and other animals.
I have worked among Suits in many positions and more than one profession for decades. There are some who are decent folk. Too often, they are anything but, particularly if they are in the business of "owning" "property" or carrying out the orders of those who "own" land.
They cannot be reasoned with and they’ve no sympathy, and certainly no empathy, for anyone. Or they’ve deadened that empathy. They either brainwash others to accept their view of life. Or they buy them. Or they threaten them. And buy governments, military, the police.
And their prey, which they consider EVERYONE and EVERYTHING ELSE, usually timidly knuckles under, accepting worsening conditions, or the threat of worsening conditions.
Those who write that any CEO here is just “following orders” is correct. Defy the soul-dead Suits, and end up with terrible, terrible trouble.
I can personally attest to the severe injury and misery “those in power” inflict upon you when you say, “No,” or worse, request that they find and activate their own humanity. I’ve seen what employers and others do to others who say, “No, I won’t do what you tell me.” And I’ve said “No,” myself, many times and consequently undergone hardship materially, physically, and more.
All of which is to say: Understand from whom this hell is coming (don’t shoot the messenger) and, despite the enormity of it all, consider resisting Blackstone's expanding destruction of our homes
In order to resist a landlord successfully you must have numbers, a TA, and lawyers. We have none of the three.
DeleteWhat is PA? Is it PR - Public Relations?
ReplyDeleteYou are 100% right. Blackstone's decision-makers/destructo forces give everyone here their marching orders.
Remember: we are all good neighbors; workers here are leaving things better than they found it; they are all so kind.
Who was it during the Vietnam era who said something to the effect that they bombed the village to save it?
With the exception of Jerold Nadler, I think all New York City and State politicians are corrupt to the core. I won't vote anymore in local elections, only Presidential elections.
ReplyDeleteI am not happy with any of the local politicians who have been in office here over the past five years. They keep getting re-elected and do nothing positive. That includes Garodnick, deBlasio, Kavannagh, Holman And Cuomo so whom I blame for destroying the state agency I worked for.
ReplyDeleteHere are the names of the lawyers and law firms who have not won a single tenant harassment lawsuit against a landlord in over 20 years. Legal Aid Society ought to be shut down after being sued to the core. All the lawyers and law firms are very wealthy. Not one single case against a landlord for tenant harassment in over 20 years is more than disgraceful, it is criminal. Urban Justice, GOLES, any and of the existing so called tenant groups are no better then Legal Aid Society. In New York City there is no shortage of landlords harassing tenants. We might as well do away with the useless Public Advocate job too. These lawyers and law firms work for the landlords and developers.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.legalaidnyc.org/board/
As I came into my building this evening, I noticed that in the promotional materials left for our perusal was a leaflet entitled "Quieter Living in The City." Boggles the mind. Management lives in an alternate universe.
ReplyDeleteIt is all part of their PR.
DeleteI think that part of the heat problem stems from the fact that there are so many tenants here who either are students and do not care or people afraid to call management. When I poll neighbors about the heat, some say they have plenty( not buying it always) or it is kind of chilly during the day but warm at night. Then there are those who just use space heaters and are content to risk fire using them. All of these apathetic and denying residents make it easier for Blackstone to withhold heat. I have heard residents say that they are fine with having to resort to space heaters. This prevents us from getting any relief or acknowledgement of the problem.
DeleteIt’s 12:30 am and 15 degrees outside and the bloodsucking bastards have already turned the
ReplyDeleteheat off. Unbelievable!
@11:33 PM. I use space heaters because the heat is so insufficient. I would prefer to not have to use them, but have no choice because the lack of heat is just so appalling and I have been hospitalized with pneumonia recently as a direct result of getting the flu and having no heat. First time I've been sick in years. I have complained my head off to maintenance and all they say is get a thermometer and let us send an engineer to your apartment. My thermometer read 60 degrees one morning and they still wanted to send an engineer. The fucking pipes and radiators were as cold as a Blackstone heart and the heat didn't come on for several hours after I complained. Either their heat system doesn't work as it should or they are deliberately denying us heat for whatever their evil reasons are.
ReplyDeleteI am sorry about your lack of heat and illness. It is good that you DO complain but others don’t.
DeleteUsing a space heater doesn't affect the heat in other apartments unless yours is an apartment with the heat sensors. I know two people who have the sensors in their apartments and their apartments are always freezing cold. The sensors don't work and Management just won't admit it.
ReplyDeleteJust to note: the infractions of "the rules" continue. Not only have I seen uncovered mattresses on the loops, but I just saw a German Shepherd (that breed is banned in Stuy Town), being walked casually by his owner around the Oval. Obviously, no Stuy Town tag and the PS officer in the small guard booth never said a word. And just the other day I saw another dog, minus official ST dog tag, being walked out of Stuy Town by the dog's owner. So Management would "like" the rules to be obeyed, but the rest is BS.
ReplyDeleteSTR, I think we all know by now that the only rule that Management will enforce is the one that says we have to pay our rent every month. No other rules matter. This once-desirable residential property is being driven down to the level of a slum. I believe that that is Blackstone's trademark when it comes to the properties it buys. Our Management is going by the Blackstone ethos and turning the place into a nasty, dirty slum. Even NYCHA enforces its rules concerning certain breeds of dogs. Our Management doesn't give a shit what happens here, just so long as the rents are paid. I think we would have been better off if we had been taken over by HUD.
ReplyDeleteFREEZING!!
ReplyDeleteI don't think Rick is a bad person. I think he means well. He will say that the heat gizmos in the building are all in order, temp is set right, etc., but I don't think he takes into consideration that in many of the apartments with sensors the sensors simply don't work. If the machinery that sends up the heat isn't getting the message from the sensors that it needs to send up heat, then it won't send up heat!
ReplyDeleteI know people who live in apartments with sensors and they are absolutely freezing. I also know someone who lives in an apartment with a sensor installed in it and she is sweltering and begging them to turn down the heat. The sensors are crap and Management would save itself a lot of time and bad PR and bad feelings from tenants if they would simply scrap the sensors and go back to the old system of sending up heat when it's cold enough for heat and judge by the outside temperature, not some faulty, failed sensor system that is useless!
It's a good job I don't have sensors in my apartment because I like to cook and when the oven is on the apartment gets very warm. Didn't the rocket scientists who installed this system think about that?
No. I think Rick is a bad person. An inconsiderate corporate goon.
DeleteAnd yes, the heat sensors are BS.
Since we're mostly paying half our salary to live here, perhaps fixing the windows and getting real ac would be nice. These sound like jet engines and produce no cold air in the summer. Help? Where is management on this as I'm about to post a huge stay away from this on my corporate employers website (50k employees)
ReplyDeleteBeware 526 East 20th is a revolving door of businesses operating in apartments
ReplyDeleteMarshall is at it again defending management. On the TA site he gives a length explanation of the sensor system and denies that management is withholding heat.
ReplyDeleteI meant Marsh, not Marshall
DeleteNever weep for Blackstone:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.crainsnewyork.com/markets/blackstones-ceo-made-estimated-655-million-last-year
I have no problems with the AC in the summer. After years without it is a pleasure to have it here. I do have a problem with lack of heat. My heat situation has fortunately improved of late but I see that others are still cold. And it is not the windows.
ReplyDelete@4:30 PM: You mean John Marsh? He only ever chimes in when he wants to defend management or sing the praises of some politician. Just ignore him.
ReplyDeleteLiars. Management lies. Makes up stories, smiles at you as it lies about what is happening to you, what they are doing to you, to others. WHAT THEY ARE DOING TO HURT YOU.
ReplyDeleteI talk to many people who work here.
A group of people in the diner last year told me that "There is a Death Team" which goes into apartments of those tenants who die. They get in there faster than relatives of the dead tenant in order to clean it out. I heard it myself from an extremely distraught son whose father had died in an apartment here. It was infuriating and heartbreaking to hear how he'd been denied entrance to his father's home.
Last summer a trio of workers described to me how badly they (employees) are being hurt. Lately, I spoke with someone working here for 30 years who talked about the landscaping fiasco. (I, personally, care a great deal, because many non-human lives have been killed or hurt here - trees, squirrels, birds, grass, bushes. ALL lives matter.) He talked about the "bosses" here who have no idea what they are doing, lie, treat workers unfairly in terms of favoritism. I don't think he has any respect for many of the human vermin who live here these days either.
A day afterward I learned that some favored few have indeed received new windows. (Hint: it is not even likely that they pay rent, if you take my meaning.)
I learned that last year, particular buildings had heat problems as bad and worse than this year.
One example: a couple in their 90's pled for heat repeatedly, and it was denied to them. The employee here was quite specific and sure: something to the effect that management knows "old people need more heat; their bones can't take the cold." The previous day another employee had said straight out, "They (management) WANT PEOPLE TO DIE."
Of course, "We'll make your lives miserable, noisy, cold, chaotic, dangerous. We'll expose you to mold and maybe to cancer-causing substances, to deteriorating conditions, to the kinds of daily disturbances and sounds that will make sleep impossible and bring on mental difficulties, immune system failure, lethal diseases. We will wage psychological warfare against you. We'll lie. Some of us will enjoy your pain. Most of us in "higher positions" hope we can drive you out of your home. If your death occurs, partly as a result of our expanding and ceaseless actions, even better."
I'm one of the residents here who had no heat at all, or so little that it didn't matter for many weeks. All of the sudden, there is HEAT. As others have written, defective, drafty windows had NOTHING to do with whether there was comfort and safety in my home or not. Just HEAT denied or HEAT supplied.
Lily Tomlin is famously quoted: "No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up." Count me in.
The apologists for the phony Tenants Association are impotent and corrupt.
ReplyDeleteWhy would anyone listen to them?
I wouldn't give them 50 cents let alone 50 dollars membership.
Steinberg and that whole crew are really without shame.
But when a photo op comes up, they are Johnny on the spot.
No heat? No problem?
"Just Call Rick"
Truly vile, venal, self-serving parasites.
10:21 I have no problem with the heat. Ok Mr. No problem with your aC how much is the rent?
ReplyDeleteI dont live here but the stuy cafe has bad real bad food. Tried now a few times, coffee is gross, muffins are ok, cupcake ok, chicken is gross, hamburger too. For this price, they need to be ashamed.
ReplyDeleteThe food is overpriced and very mediocre
DeleteWe have no heat today because the outside temperature is in the 40s. It is still very uncomfortable indoors. These people are the absolute epitome of BLOODSUCKING PARASITES. They have no conscience, no soul and no empathy whatsoever. They remind me of a certain person with orange hair, but I know I can't go there.
ReplyDeleteTypical scum de la scum of the real estate industry.
Puke on elevator floor this morning.
ReplyDeleteGuess too much partying last night.
So unfair and disrespectful towards our hardworking porters.
turn the heat off. We're burning up here today
ReplyDeleteIt is people like you 4:15 that make it difficult for those cold tenants without heat. When I had minimal heat there was no solution. Of late , my heat has been better. My apartment is warm, maybe a bit too much but I am happy with that. Just open a window or put a fan on. The other alternative is worse.
DeleteDownstairs apartment getting rowdy again. Wonder if a new group of bros has moved in. Loud partying and pot smell lately. Maybe it is time to call security.
Deletecafe lower your dang prices if your food gonna taste like cheap food.
ReplyDeleteI firmly believe that the withholding of heat is a deliberate attempt to get rid of the elderly people. Elderly folk feel the cold so much more keenly than the young and they are more susceptible to illness brought on my being too cold. Their poor bodies can't fight off intense cold and whatever viruses and infections they come in contact with.
ReplyDeleteI firmly believe that this is a deliberate, murderous strategy by Management. I am surprised that there is no sympathy or help from our local politicians (though maybe I should be!), and I am disgusted at the total lack of concern on the part of the so-called TA.
dont live here but the stuy cafe has bad real bad food. Tried now a few times, coffee is gross, muffins are ok, cupcake ok, chicken is gross, hamburger too. For this price, they need to be ashamed.
ReplyDeleteAre you a Resident’s guest? If not, you have no business eating in 5 Stuy Cafe. Due to the zoning requirements and restrictions for the property, it’s supposed to be for Residents and their Guests only.
Just went down to the recycling room and couldn't believe my eyes. What with the Super Bowl celebrations and it being the churn time of the month, it was a horror. Don't know why anybody would want to work here as a porter, especially if they are treated like shit by this vile excuse for a management.
ReplyDeleteI will NEVER recycle again as long as we have this type of management and this type of "tenant." No one should have to cater to this type of filthy slob, i.e., the shit that lives here and the shit that owns/manages this dump.
"turn the heat off. We're burning up here today"
ReplyDeleteWe're not! Had to use space heaters today, just like most days this winter.