Support for the hard workers on the TA Facebook

I'm not a member of the TA Facebook because of its rules against secret identities, so I can't post there, but let me state emphatically here that I support the posters who are voicing concerns over the problems in PCVST and exposing these problems through photos and internet detective work. There are a couple of posters on that Facebook, however, who are adamantly trying to dissuade these hard workers and proving themselves to be remarkably oppositional. It's almost as if they were set up by the powers that be, have some relationship with them (like friendship with Lady Maya), or are just plain naive about some of the significant problems occurring in this complex. I am certain that these couple of posters have made similar comments here and are still trying to make them, though at this point I head them off at the pass and will not allow such purposeful provocation. The purpose of this provocation, whether here or at the TA Facebook, is to dampen the spirit of those who are trying to do something and confuse, and therefore nullify, the serious discussions (and presentation of evidence!) taking place. Please don't fall for this. And ram on.

Wake up Oval residents! It's another Lady Maya event!

If you are a resident who lives around the Oval and you thought your Saturday morning was going to be peaceful--YOU WERE WRONG! It's seems that in a fit of "we're giving you this event whether you like it or not," the powers that be had work crews out very early in the morning making banging and clanging noises, echoing all over the Oval, to erect what looks to be a massive tent on the Oval lawn to protect from inclement weather whatever limited amount of people will be attending today's concert. Market rate tenants, if you were wondering why your rents are so high, as well as your lease renewal rents--well, this is part of the reason. All this labor costs money for an event that doesn't make any money and which is free for all New Yorkers and their guests. And, of course, someone must pay for Lady Maya's Starbucks brew (no Oval Cafe for her!) that she gets before she drudges into Stuy Town to boss people around. Updates to come for sure!

UPDATE: EPIC FAIL

It's been my contention that on a sunny day the crowds at the music events are significantly larger because of sunbathers, who are present on the Oval lawn not for the concert, but for the sun. Well, today, the sun was absent. Crowd size half an hour into the concert? About 50. So all this money spent on the performers, the setup, the advertizing, the raising of a tent, security, maintenance, etc, etc. is just money wasted, as are many of the gimmicks in this place. No wonder rents have to be raised for those renewing their leases on market rate apartments!

UPDATE: MAN, THAT WAS LOUD!

Alejandro Escovedo was really rocking, and he was joined by Stuy Town resident Garland Jeffreys for two final numbers to close out "Roots & Rock Sessions" for the summer, though we are promised more events to come (sigh). The music was pumped up real loud, as it needed to be for these type of numbers, but if you are an Oval resident, you can't escape the music unless you escape Stuy Town. I half expected a police car to show up. I'd say about 100 more people were added to the 50 I saw earlier. It's always embarrassing to see the white people here dancing to rock music (or, worse still, reggae). STR maintains his composure throughout.

PCVST managing director Sean Sullivan was present for a brief time and passed by STR within a few feet. I always find such chance occurrences amusing, as I do when Lady Maya passes me by, which has already happened to me several times.

Pit Bulls in Stuy Town

Example of Pit Bull. Not actual photo of Stuy Town dog, unless he moved in yesterday.

Public Safety has been doing a commendable, and thankless, job in checking to see if dogs are registered in Stuyvesant Town, and in keeping dogs off the Oval Fountain area and pathways. The attitude of the Public Safety officers I have seen doing this has been friendly and respectful. Obviously, they get blowback from some dog owners, who consider these actions harassment, promising protests, an attitude I can understand if one has been repeatedly stopped while walking one's dog around the Oval, where most, if not all of the checks are done. (And that's the problem. I've as yet to see Public Safety conducting these checks in other areas of STPCV where many people bring their dogs. Perhaps these checks happen, but from what I've seen, they are done exclusively in the Oval area.)

All that said, there is a real problem that is still not being dealt with: pit bulls in Stuy Town.  Pit bulls and pit-bull mixes are banned in Stuy Town/PCV, and yet I have seen three such dogs being walked with impunity in Stuy Town--dogs owned by Stuy Town residents!  Two of these dogs were being walked around the Oval area.  When I inquired of Public Safety about them, I was told that both dogs had Stuy Town registration tags.  How is this possible, I inquired further?  None of the Public Safety officers was able to tell me, as mystified as I.

Somehow, a few residents are getting away with having their pit bulls/pit bull mixes registered here.  A glaring hole in Stuyvesant Town's dog policy and an insult to those dog owners who obey the rules.

More Bad Publicity for Stuy Town

Woke up this morning to this, a major article in the NY Times Region section about the illegal hotels here and the hunt by long-term residents, particularly Janey Donnelly and Margaret Salacan, to track the location of these hotels.  Lux's initial publicizing of the problem on his blog is also brought to attention.  And the article just doesn't get into the illegal hotel business in the complex, expanding out to include mention of other problems in STPCV:

Scratch a tenant angry about one thing, and a dozen more complaints will tumble out: students doubled or tripled up in apartments that previously housed families; noisy concerts on the lawn; food trucks and a farmers’ market bringing outsiders in; overstressed garbage and recycling areas; advertisements beckoning prospective tenants “to live and live it up.”

And this:

On a recent evening, Ms. Salacan led a reporter on a tour of some unwelcome developments in the two complexes. She described a culture clash between some longtime residents and more recent arrivals.

“It’s only eight o’clock,” she said, opening the door to a garbage room with bins already full. “In two hours this’ll all be overflowing. And I can tell you there’s already a rat in this building.”

“Who knows what they’ll be bringing in,” she added, pushing on to the next building, past two joggers with ear buds and in T-shirts reading, “Cornell Class of 2015.” A mattress stacked in a garbage area did not have a cover — another violation, she said: “I don’t want to live in a transient neighborhood.”

The powers that be respond to the illegal hotel problem via Joe DePlasco, spokesman for Rose Associates and CWCapital:

JOE DePLASCO, a spokesman for Rose Associates and CW Capital, which took control of the two complexes in 2010, after Tishman Speyer and BlackRock defaulted on their mortgage, said that management routinely combed the Internet for short-term listings and had sent cease-and-desist letters to 50 tenants since the middle of last year. Of these, 15 had moved out or had removed their listings, he said. The remaining 35 were “at various points in the legal process with general counsel or outside counsel,” he said. “They take this very seriously.”

The article has an appropriate ending, with a quote from Donnelly about Stuy Town:

“It’s not family-oriented anymore,” she said. “The oasis is gone.”

Stuy Town Fails Fire Inspections

There's money, time, energy, planning and manpower put into Oval Events and creating Oval Ice Rink and Oval Cafe, but it appears that Stuyvesant Town was caught short in performing routine fire door inspections throughout the complex, as well as other fire safety inspections. The NYC Fire Department was called in to investigate after volunteers from the Tenants Association found, according to Town & Village, "fire code violations in nearly every building."  Because of this, CWCapital has received eight violations based on the the FDNY inspections and must fix the problems within 35 days or face a $1,000 fine for each violation.  More Fire Department inspections are forthcoming.

Doors in stairways must close properly or else they can let through smoke and fire throughout a building should an apartment catch fire. Apparently, Public Safety used to check each building from top to bottom, but, according to John Marsh, TA's new president, the sweeps, he noticed, weren't being done anymore, which instigated his concern about the fire safety of buildings in PCV/ST.  A FDNY Fire Inspector called the failure of doors closing  “extremely dangerous, because it could fail to stop the spread of fire--and especially smoke--to other areas of the structure.” According to the fire inspector, the failure of self-closing doors could have a "severity level" in the "immediately hazardous category."

The TA website gives more information about its inspections, including this:

"The TA’s volunteers checked more than 2,900 doors in Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village and identified 587 doors (20%) in 106 of the community’s 110 buildings (96%) that did not self-close and latch, creating a potentially hazardous situation.... In addition to the findings on the doors, the TA’s volunteers noted buildings that were missing floor indicator signage in hallways, on stair doors, and in stairwells; standpipes that were locked and chained; piping passing through holes larger than the pipes themselves creating a path for fire and smoke to travel; and what are unsafe and non-code-compliant window safety panes, such as plastic, in the fire doors themselves."

I myself noted that work done on pipes in the stairways in my building left gaping holes between floors.  My concern was asbestos (the holes were significant with, to me, unknown fireproof material jutting out), but I never gave a thought that these holes could also let fire and smoke travel through a building.  When nothing was done about these holes for weeks, I called maintenance about the problem, and still nothing was done.  Months went by, and only recently were the holes plastered over.  (Rumor is that Stuy Town was alerted to the forthcoming FDNY inspections and moved quickly to fix as many problems as it could before the actual inspections took place.  Please note that this alert may have come because of the start of the inspections.)

The TA goes on to state:

"The Tenants Association is also outraged that, in addition to the safety findings, the volunteers found substantial evidence of alcohol, tobacco, and drug use in the stairwells as well as indications that people have been using stair landings to relieve themselves and their dogs. The TA sees these abuses as a direct outcome of the suspensions of the vertical patrols by PCV/ST Public Safety that were standard procedure for years."

Kudos to John Marsh and the TA volunteers for their work on this.

Come One, Come All

From the TA Facebook: Screen shot of an internet conversation at http://www.brooklynvegan.com/archives/2012/05/free_shows_at_s.html concerning publicity about Stuy Town concerts.

I think we need to admit that there is nothing that we, as residents, can do about the summer events that happen at the Oval. We are not the current custodians of ST/PCV.  Because these events are free, they don't even need to be advertized for zoning purposes as "for residents and their guests."  Indeed, there is ample evidence that the powers that be are publicizing these events to people outside this community, without using the disclaimer, in the hopes of attracting larger crowds than usually come to these gatherings meant, or so their representatives claim, for "our community."

There is probably a purpose to this madness of summer events advertized to all of NYC, and that is to make Stuyvesant Town seem like a happening place--in the words of the publicity, a place where "there is something always going on."  These summer Stuy Town events, btw, were first set in motion by our previous lords and masters, Tishman Speyer.

Of course, producing and managing these events costs money, and the bigger the crowds the more cost involved and the less such events become places where Stuy Town neighbors can meet other neighbors, a congenial get-together that has also been stressed in Stuy Town publicity, this time to residents, as if neighbors can't meet other neighbors aside from the events planned here at Stuy Town.

It would probably be beneficial to stress that our current custodian, CWCapital, is most interested in selling this property for the highest price in a year or two, while showing that it's financially booming and an exciting, lucrative property to own.  The company is investing in its holding, which is why you are seeing the new plantings (at a cost of $2 million!), the Oval Cafe, the summer events, and Lord knows what else coming down the line. So this is CWCapital's primary concern, and everything else is reduced to less of a concern.

Which gets us to the residents of this community.  How "concerned" is CWCapital about us, the residents?  Surely, chiefly as dollar signs, which is why long-time rent-stabilized tenants must be the bane of a company like CWCapital, or any enterprise that will own this place.  Brutally speaking, a landlord of this complex just waits out the day when long-term RS tenants will die out, and no apartment succession happens, placing apartments quickly into market-rate category where the rent can be doubled, at the very least.

Yet, surprisingly, I've heard from people who are paying market-rate prices that even they, as the renters whose rent matters most in the eyes of the landlord, are being squeezed for even more come lease renewal time. Some, already stretched thin with high rents, can't afford the extra that's being asked of them, and they move out, to be replaced by an eager renter who wishes to make New York his or her home and finds it hard to find something suitable with the current tight rental market in Manhattan.

There is something uncomfortably merciless about all this, but I think it underlines a truth we may find unpleasant.  Absent a "beneficent" dictator approach, landlords are not our friends.  That's why we need laws and the upkeep of laws, that's why we need a tenant organization, and local politicians who will truly fight for (and I mean fight, not pay lip service to) tenant rights.

Meanwhile, it seems that CWCapital can do anything it wants with the Oval events, and who it lets into the complex to make use of these events.  For residents and their guests.  Or not.

Can't Be

There's a post on the TA Facebook page that shows an Airbnb apartment (hotel usage) that is a room in this official promo for a two bedroom in Peter Cooper Village:



Here's the room in the Airbnb ad:

And a screen capture from the promotional video:

Now, I don't think this is any smoking gun exposing something nefarious. Surely not!  Most probably someone is just using official Stuy Town/PCV promotional material for their Airbnb ad:

BTW, if you want to rent this apartment for a month, it will cost you $9468!  Fantastic markup!  (I think.)

Tales of the Oval Cafe

Because there are almost no problems in this complex (ha!), we are allowed to focus on... the Oval Cafe, the gift that keeps on giving....

Well, that was quick. The Oval Cafe just barely opened and it already has a Sanitary Inspection Grade, passing with a flying "A"!  But let's get to specifics (critical violations are in red):

Sanitary Violations
1) Cold food item held above 41º F (smoked fish and reduced oxygen packaged foods above 38 ºF) except during necessary preparation.
2) Plumbing not properly installed or maintained; anti-siphonage or backflow prevention device not provided where required; equipment or floor not properly drained; sewage disposal system in disrepair or not functioning properly.

Wait till they start frying chicken fingers and heating up that pizza!

BTW, those of you who are believe in omens should note that the inspection was carried out on Friday the 13th.

* * *

 

 

Meanwhile, you will be pleased to learn that the cafe is selling La Colombe Torrefaction. This brew, despite the snotty hipster name, is apparently not good enough for the Director of Resident Programing in Stuy Town and the genius behind the cafe, who chooses to go to Starbucks for her morning coffee. So that's not much of recommendation, is it?

* * * 

Here are some new rules for you at the cafe.  The one I found of interest is that you can't seat your ass down in one of the patio chairs unless you have made a purchase from Oval Cafe.  (Some tenants were wondering if this was an all-resident, non-purchasing tenant area. You gotta be kidding me!)  Also, keep your damn pets (dogs, cats and monkeys) outside the cafe!

The TA Facebook page (which is really jumping these days!) notes that there's a Help Wanted on Craig's List for Oval Cafe staff.  Here's the text:

Come join the American Leisure team at the NEW Oval Café in Stuy Town! We are seeking experienced café employees! Please send us your resume AS AN ATTACHMENT. We are seeking experienced, energetic and professional team members with a background in café service, to join the Oval Cafe team for ALL positions including the following: Baristas, Counter Service, Kitchen Prep Team. American Leisure offers a professional work environment with paid vacation and benefits program. Oval Café offers great coffee, grab and go, mercantile, ice cream and many more counter focused service items.


Okay, but where's the experienced staff who will know how to make a peanut butter & jelly sandwich?!

Curious that we learned from Town & Village that another company was going to be running the Oval Cafe. But now it's our familiar friends, American Leisure. Donations of salt shakers, toothpicks and toilet paper gratefully accepted.  See Radu.