So, have we lost count of how many General Managers we have had? I'm know I'm getting confused. A lot of things are not working here, and getting more and more by the month. The "rules" here are mostly not enforced. Outside dogs, crap on our paths, electric bicycles and skateboards, uncovered mattresses on the loops, leaf blowers whose exhaust is pollution and the spreading of disease, local politicians who tell you what you want to hear about these issues but do nothing, a small tenant organization that is a mockery of the term..... The "rules" are bs. Just meant to placate and present this area as worthy of rentals to those thinking about renting. Yeah, this place is better for certain things with the extra space with have in our community. But it is a far cry from former times, and I have been here for over 30 years. It is a money-making operation, and residents are behind on the line. If it was up to me, I would want all residents to be the focus of my work and dedication. I would want "quality of life" to be uppermost. That means the "rules" would have to enforced. That is why the loud music from "events" is bs. That is why the periodic marches of whatever cause is primary to the "woke" crowd is bs. That is why the mantra of "Good Neighbors" is bs, (Why are we being told to be a "good neighbor" when that comes instinctively?) Stop it with the continual pandering. Do not speak with Beam tongue.
377 comments:
1 – 200 of 377 Newer› Newest»I agree with everything you say, STR. We are no long "tenants" renting homes to live in. We are "residents" (a/k/a guests, but guests are usually treated better than we are) and all they care about is squeezing as much money as they can from us and the property.
Everyone who works for Blackstone/Beam Living is shit. They have to be. No decent person could or would work for this life-negating syndicate.
We had no heat all day yesterday and have none today. Bastards. I don't want to read any more of the "bulletins" about dog day, movie night, kiddy birthday parties, etc. I JUST WANT HEAT!!!!
I live in this shithole and pay a handsome rent to do so. I want to enjoy my apartment and not have to wear two sweaters indoors and have to put the oven on to try to take the chill off my rotten overpriced apartment. A landlord that cannot/will not provide heat during the coldest days of winter should be removed, arrested and the property handed over the City. The City Projects are better run and get more heat than this fetid old horror of a housing property.
They hire CRETINS to "manage" this place.
EXCELLENT, STR!
I think that somewhere it is written, "Truth is the first casualty of war." Blackstone has been waging war against people who live in any of their housing since the 2008 housing crisis. They were either the first financial "equity" predators to begin hurting people them, or among the very first.
That you began a new thread headed by a discussion of a daily dishonesty that badly hurts many people, even perhaps unto death by way of stress, noise, disturbance, lack of heat, lack of physical security in one's own home . . . is cause for congratulations.
Thank you for being brave and honest.
There definitely is a reason why StyPCV is known to be The Suicide Capitol of NYC.
I've lived here since the mid-seventies and have lost count of the number of suicides I've known of (some, unfortunately, seen the aftermath of). Very, very few of them make it to the attention of the press or media. I think that (well, I know that) there is a mechanism in place to keep these things out of the press and as hushed up as possible.
Sadly, it is what it is.
Deregulation has led to destabilization. Half the tenants here are now short term passers-through, Welcome Home! They don’t care, they’ll be gone at the end of the semester.
Those of us who’ve been here for decades will hold on for a while, but you don’t have to be the Amazing Kreskin to see what the future holds for this piece of prime real estate - whoever owns it will continue to suck as much cash out of it, with minimal maintenance, until it reaches the point where the only solution is to bulldoze it and replace it with a cluster of the sort of high-rise skyboxes we see sprouting up across the East River.
They’ll probably even give a nod to the area’s history in the new name. Stuyvesant Green, anyone?
"They’ll probably even give a nod to the area’s history in the new name. Stuyvesant Green, anyone?"
NYU Stuyvesant
STPCV has been targeted by NYU for 20+ years. For obvious P.R. reasons one NYC crown jewel, NYU, cannot be publicly associated with the destruction of a separate NYC crown jewel, STPCV.
Likewise, the V.A. Hospital complex is another NYC crown jewel target coveted by NYU.
Both acquisitions will be staged to look like last-minute rescue operations.
No heat all day today. None yesterday, either. This is really criminal behavior. I think they are trying to keep the apartments churning because everybody I know (longtime and new) is complaining about the lack of heat and are using space heaters or planning to get space heaters. Some are keeping the ovens on and that is NOT healthy.
I don't know what the end-plan is, but these amoral assholes must have a reason for doing this.
@Feb 20, 6:22 PM: So that is why they are letting the property fall apart and making life too miserable for anybody to want to stay here long? Makes sense. NYU is insatiably greedy for money and property. It is no longer dedicated to being a great seat of learning and state-of-the art medical care and research. It is as greedy and metastatic as any ruthless, cut-throat corporation. If you are a patient in the hospital you are customer, not a patient, but you won't get very good "customer service" from my experience.
Even the doctors get disgusted by the avarice because it hinders their ability to do the best thing for their patients.
I very much doubt NYU would be able to buy, demolish, and rebuild a whole new campus on PCVST property. As well funded as they are, they don’t have that kind of cash. You’re talking about many tens of billions.
They might be one of the players, maybe part of the property might go to them, but not an outright sale. More likely it’d be a consortium of developers and financiers. 80 acres of buildable property in midtown Manhattan? That’s an opportunity that certainly never to be seen again, the price would be astronomical.
It won’t happen anytime soon, but I’d bet by the time this pace turns 100 years old, it’ll at least be in the planning stage. You might not be able to read it yet, but handwriting is on the wall.
My speculation is that when Blackstone is through with this property as is, there will be BIG money to be made from the land itself, and the buildings will be "upgraded" (torn down) to build new towers. It will take decades, but I'd say in about 20-30 years, the old buildings will start being gone. I don't think it will be NYU, but Blackstone itself with a little help from "partners," maybe the city (politicians) itself.
I wish Blackstone would be gone. Let's keep in mind that the LL and the TA and the politicians all piss in the same pot. I'd say we are pretty much sunk (drowned by their piss) and the best thing anybody can do is move out and warn anyone they meet who might be thinking about renting here. I've had it with paying through the nose for a cold apartment situated in a shitty dorm. Most of the buildings are dorms to a large extent.
It's 52 degrees outside and we have heat. I am NOT complaining because I welcome the heat, BUT when it was 32 degrees outside we had NO heat. I expect that when the outside temperature drops down to the 30s, as is predicted, we will have NO heat again.
Their stinking "sensors" are a total f*ck-up (just like the Carnival Cruise idiots who run this dump). "Management" is a bad joke. They must be the Marx Brothers of housing management and should have stuck to the "hospitality" business. At least we are now well warned about ever staying in a hotel or resort that is run by any entity involving Blackstone! Have to do some background checking before make reservations!
NO FU*KIN' HEAT.
That says it all.
Pipes are ice cold. Guess that's because it is 52 degrees out and drizzling so why should ghoulish Management care. After all, maybe they can squeeze out a few extra dollars.
This is the nastiest, sleaziest and most uncaring "management" we have ever had. I would be embarrassed to tell anybody who I worked for if I were one of their employees. As it is, I am embarrassed to admit to anyone that I live here! I would not recommend this place to my worst enemy. I could never do that to a person, even if I loathed them!
The human garbage who run this place should slither away and return to the pile of excrement they slithered out of.
Large pile of dog shit outside elevator on the main floor of 444 e 20th street all day yesterday. Classy place for sure. Love the amenities, free dog shit skating across the lobby floor. Nice, and they want us to recommend the dorms to others. LOL, I tell anyone who will listen to run not walk away from this shit hole, pun intended.
There were multiple fires. Two golf carts. And Walgreens is closed. Trying to find out more, but the resident Facebook has posted a few photos from residents cellphone cameras.
I would say that the security cameras are going to depict the person or persons responsible. Of course, there is mask wearing for some, but even so something is going to be seen. It could even be a "prank" by teens. We'll see.
They were absolutely set on purpose. The golf carts may drive around the property like lunatics, but I’ve never seen or heard of one going on fire, nevermind 2 within minutes and within a few hundred feet of one another.
Walgreens is also suspicious based on the timing of the 2 golf carts. My question - even if the cameras find out who did it, will that person face charges, or will they be back on the streets before the morning??
I think it's teenagers. The time is right after school, and there should be more than one. The person or persons will be charged. If they are teenagers, don't they get away without any harsher punishment?
No school for kids this week, so most are roaming around all day this week. I wouldn’t put it past a group of teens, but I also wouldn’t put it past any of the people that hang out on 14th and 1st.
I have never been so absolutely totally fed up of this dump in the 30+ years I've been living here. They treat us like shit, but they are shit and we need to start treating them like the shit that they are.
The place is filthy, fetid, unsafe and overrun with AirBnB people and repulsive undergrad students whose parents didn't love them enough to teach them how to behave like decent human beings. Parent who love their offspring take the time and the trouble to teach them how to behave in a NOT anti-social manner. Too many peri-menopausal women had petri dish kids they were too old and tired to discipline and teach them any respect for anybody or anything.
We are stuck with these entitled bastards as they strive to become adults without any parental guidance.
We have to put up with constant noise from the bros and babes, as well as the horrible noisy "events" this poor apology of a landlord puts on to entertain the garbage they attract these days.
Thanks to TS we now have dogs all over the place. Huge dogs (some in twos and some in threes) all over the property, dropping their 3lb of shit everywhere and anywhere the please, including in the elevators, outside the elevators, in the lobbies and all over the fucking property. We have NO Public Safety/Security because they all eunuchs and don't even look at their cameras (and it's questionable if the cameras even work) and just show up to do NOTHING. A real peace officer or police officer would laugh in their faces.
To add to the misery, we have little to no heat. No matter how much the trained monkeys in Resident Services and the Top Monkey in "Management" explain the sensors system to us, the fact remains that most of us get little to know heat when we need it. To add insult to injury, we are supposed to check with their little toy thermometers and suck up their scripts of lies. It's like a kick in the gut when you are already down.
We're going to move out in a few months and we are going to go loud and long and far and wide in airing our experiences of living in the most overpriced, badly-managed sick joke (and waaaay overpriced) housing project in (probably) the entire country.
Stay tuned.
I just got home. What is all this about golf carts being set on fire on the property? Something about Walgreens too. This is getting to be too much drama and fear to have to live with. Will there be an arsonist setting fires in the buildings next? We have so little protection from the so-called "Public Safety" who are supposed to be protecting us. They can't even deal with people walking oversized dogs through the property (that might or might not live here - and if they do, it is illegal). The PS guys don't watch the cameras. They review the cameras after an incident has taken place or after a crime has been committed. Anybody can get away with anything here. It is a criminal's paradise. Strangers enter the buildings, go through the hall and steal packaged from in front of doors. If they don't want whatever was in the packages they just leave the stuff on the stairs. "Management's" response to this is "Oval Concierge" and that is a total rip-off and overpriced. Plus our packages are not safe there either.
Can't wait to get OUT of this lousy dump. We have a "security force" that is about as useful as tits on a boar hog and "Management" is a bad joke. A sick joke.
Nobody knows who their neighbors are. The buildings are full of students, transients and AirBnB "guests." I know that for a fact. Instead of spending its energy, efforts and money into putting on hokey events and initiating dumbass and illegal gimicks like "Welcome Home" on the doors and ripping out the directories (which happens to be illegal under NYC law - hear that you bozos?) they should be focusing on making the property as safe and livable as it should be for the folks paying through the nose to live in ancient apartments which have been tarted up with bottom-of-the line shit. Look at the new laundry equipment. Absolute garbage and costs more than the previous garbage. Most of us send our laundry out to places where it will be right, at an affordable price and in less time that it takes to wait for one of the few working machines to free up here.
Blackstone and previous "landlords" have turned a once-safe and pleasant and livable residential complex into a total nightmare. A fucking train wreck. Blackstone doesn't employ people who have even a passing knowledge of how to run a large residential complex like PCVST. They hire these hacks and has-beens from the "hospitality" industry. And they haven't got a clue. They are totally out of their depth. I have absolutely ZERO respect for them. In fact I feel contempt for them. They're not even pitiable; they pitiful and if they had any self-respect and pride in themselves, they would pick up and go and tell upper management to employ people who are well-trained and competent in the field of residential housing management.
One of these days there will be a really serious and fatal mishap here and these idiots and their employers will be sued up the Wazu. Maybe even do jail time. They are totally the wrong people because they are from the wrong area of competence and professionalism. As residential property managers, they are totally incompetent and unprofessional and we, the tenants, are the ones who are at serious risk for injury or death because of them.
"I think it's teenagers. The time is right after school, and there should be more than one. The person or persons will be charged. If they are teenagers, don't they get away without any harsher punishment?"
Too bad we don't have a competent Mayor and DA to put this City back on track.
"Too bad we don't have a competent Mayor and DA to put this City back on track."
Adams is as useless as DeBozo. We need medical treatment and housing for the homeless and mentally ill. They should not be living on the streets and terrorizing the community at large. If they refuse medical treatment for their mental illnesses and commit crimes, put them in jail. That may be a harsh solution, but right now there is no solution.
Can't say I am sorry about the golf carts. They are dangerous and the idiots who drive them are always looking at their phones. Someone on EVGrieve mention this. Glad nobody was hurt, but they really need to address the problem of speeding golf carts, bicycles and scooters on the property. I don't know why Walgreens was also targeted.
This property and the entire neighborhood has gone to hell and it won't be coming back any time soon. It is not a safe place to live for many reasons, ranging from the danger of fires from space heaters (and that is on Management because they don't provide adequate heat) and the dangerous and crazy people who have taken over the streets.
We have no real "Security." PS are a bunch of mall cops and there is not enough of them for the job that department is needed for. We used to have a real Security Department that comprised trained men. Big Beefy Men! And the Commander there knew what he was doing. What have we got now? Sheesh, even Macy's wouldn't employ them to apprehend shoplifters. Speaking of shoplifters, there is a plague of them these days, and that is thanks to the former poor apology of a Mayor and the idiots in City Hall.
32 degrees outside and no f*cking heat. I guess whoever has the sensors on my line are cooking or maybe have a space heater on.
I am SO SICK (literally and figuratively) of living in an overpriced dump where the heat is parsed out according to what certain tenants (who have the sensors) happen to be doing within in the privacy of their own homes. We can hardly ask those tenants to please order out or refrain from using a space heater if their sensor isn't picking up the cold air.
This has to be the most f*cked-up and ludicrous method of designating the delivery of heat in residential apartments. This stinking management treats us like animals. In fact, the ASPCA wouldn't put up with them treating animals as if they were not sentient beings that need warmth in the winter.
Go away Ms. Resident Experience. Go away and find a real job where you don't have to be responsible for people's safety and comfort. You are as incompetent and uncaring as your predecessors and are instrumental in decent people leaving here and only transients (who don't give a damn) moving in. You are also responsible for a lot of illness and misery among the older residents (who I'm sure you want to die-off asap) and no doubt endangering the health of babies and young children who need to be warm and are particularly vulnerable, especially when there is a pandemic that has NOT gone away yet.
The people who run this place are despicable and the dregs of humanity.
I just say that they speak with Beam Tongue and do everything according to the Master, which is Blackstone. This can be a problem with a lot of companies depending on what the vision is and the focus.
One of my neighbors has the sensor in her back bedroom (it's a three bedroom apartment). She says the bedroom isn't used anymore now that her kids are grown and moved out and the bedroom is so cold she says she could use it as a large fridge if she wanted to (though she doesn't). I'm sure that those older people who are in three bedroom apartments alone because their family has grown and moved out are exactly the people that "Management" wants to kill.
MetLife didn't install that sensor system to provide warmth and comfortable living conditions to its tenants. It was installed in order to make sure that apartments remained cold and nobody would want to stay here. I suspect that was part of their strategy for emptying it of RS tenants at the time so they could sell it to the predatory vermin who wanted to jack the rents up to so-called market rate. Anybody who pays market rate to live in this place needs their brains tested. Only students and transients will put up with it.
"I just say that they speak with Beam Tongue and do everything according to the Master, which is Blackstone. This can be a problem with a lot of companies depending on what the vision is and the focus."
Well we know that the owner of Blackstone makes Putin look like Mr. Rogers.
According to The Village Sun:
The Stuyvesant Town arsonist who set two golf carts afire and used an accelerant to ignite trash at the Walgreens store on the corner of 18th Street and First Avenue has been arrested, according to police.
The three fires broke out shortly before 3 p.m. on Wed., Feb. 23.
A 13-year-old male was arrested in connection with the blazes, and was charged with arson, reckless endangerment and criminal mischief, according to police spokesperson Detective Sophia Mason.
A reliable source close to the investigation said the youth was not a resident of the complex. The source also said the alleged perpetrator was arrested at Beth Israel/Mount Sinai Hospital across the street from the sprawling Stuyvesant Town complex, but it was not clear why he was in Beth Israel and if he had burned himself while torching the golf carts or setting the Walgreens fire.
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https://thevillagesun.com/teen-busted-for-setting-three-fires-at-stuy-town-walgreens-remains-closed-for-second-day/amp?fbclid=IwAR0KQW7U1cF5ZjQaaVzztbzs0TfMKCquLOqx74sfWEHuOE-mzdFeDH_jSMQ
More here:
There will be questions, of course. The primary one is why didn't our super-duper camera system see some of this happening.
Note, that this was a teen.
And the proposed punishment? The name?
I wouldn't doubt that more arrests are coming, but for now it seems as it's one individual.
STR, our "security" cameras are a sham. We are paying an MCI for something we don't have.
13 years old! Well, he's looking at a damned future (if you can call it a future) unless someone intervenes. Only an emotionally disturbed kid would do what he did. I was a "handful" when I was 13, but arson wasn't in my repertoire of misdeeds.
Drizzly, damp, bleak day, 33 degrees.
NO HEAT in my apartment!
Since there is basically going to be a mum's the word on the arsonist, we can deduce that the teen, who doesn't live in Stuy Town, is from someplace else. Now, close to Stuy Town and Beth Israel (where he was found), what school is there? Hmm...
This so-called "Management" is very secretive. We don't know what goes on here unless we hear by word of mouth (not always the most reliable sources) or happened to be on or near the scene of an "incident." I think there is a lot that goes on that they keep under wraps because it would be bad for desperate need to rent out the apartments here. I think that word has got round as to what a crappy dump it is and they are having trouble getting renters.
They can't even keep a Manager, let alone renters/residents/guests/tenants*
*not a word you hear these days, except from the TA and the independent FB.
Hallelujah! No heat since before 8 am this morning, finally coming up now. Question is for how long?
Someone is asleep at the switch!
No heat this morning!
A "balmy" 28 degrees outside.
Despicable.
A cold water flat.
With everything going on in Ukraine, I feel guilty about complaining about no heat. But this is not Ukraine and there is no excuse for no heat. Does Putin own and run this dump?
31 degrees outside and the bastards have turned the heat off. Even with a space heater it is still cold.
If the TA wanted to earn the $50 it charges annually for membership, maybe they could organize a group of tenants (I'd definitely volunteer) to picket the renting office about the lack of heat. Maybe if people knew how damned cold and miserable it is to live in this place during the winter months, they would think twice about shelling out $3+k a month for the "pleasure" of living here. The gimmicks and "amenities" in no way compensate for having to use space heaters, heated blankets and having to wear heavy sweaters and wool socks to bed because of the miserable conditions.
These apartments remind me of the old railroad, cold-water flats of years ago. Probably, some still exist and I doubt they cost what they are charging in this overrated slum.
JFC, STR… how many times are you gonna let Mr./Ms No Heat post the same thing over and over every day?
It’s your blog, but just saying… quality over quantity? Or else, when a prospective tenant asks the rental agent, “What’s this I read on STR?”, it’s easy to dismiss as just couple of old cranks…
I understand, but when there is no heat or little of it, residents have a right to know. Because of the way things are run here and in the city, no one would know if residents did not not say anything. Great for Blackstone and minions, but not for me.
We all know the plumbing and heating systems here are antiquated and way overburdened. Some freeze, some sweat. Everyone’s drains back up, and then there’s the brown water coming out of the faucets. And the walls and floors are sonically permeable. You’ll know more about your neighbor’s business that you’d like. Of course, no one in the rental office will tell you that.
Hell, they don’t even mention that new tenants are getting a Preferred Rent, until the day they show up to sign on the dotted line, and ask, “What the hell is this MUCH higher rent figure on my lease”?
Buyer Beware. It’s great that you’re getting the word out, countering the BS and half truths coming from the management office, but having the same person saying the same thing in the same words several times a day hurts this blog’s credibility. As a long time reader, I hate to see that, because you are providing a needed service.
"JFC, STR… how many times are you gonna let Mr./Ms No Heat post the same thing over and over every day?
It’s your blog, but just saying… quality over quantity? Or else, when a prospective tenant asks the rental agent, “What’s this I read on STR?”, it’s easy to dismiss as just couple of old cranks…"
Is the truth bad for business? You sound like a rental agent or member of Management team. The truth is the truth and it doesn't matter how many times it is told. Truth is something in very short quantity in your world.
I don't think it's the same person complaining about no heat. If you look at the TA Facebook and the Tenants (not TA) Facebook you will see that many people are complaining of insufficient heat. Some people complain that their apartments are too hot. Personally, I would rather have a too-hot apartment and be able to just open a window or two instead of a cold apartment and have to resort to a space heater. The heating system that MetLife installed is defective. As one Facebook poster pointed out: if a person with the sensor in their apartment is cooking and the unit gets very warm, then the sensor thinks that is the ambient heat for all the units in that area and so the heat goes off. The neighbors upstairs and downstairs may be freezing their butts off, but it doesn't matter because the sensor responds to the temperature it picks up. It's a dumb system and very much in line with MetLife "new and improved" window installation back in the 90s. The windows are flawed and drafty and they tend to stick a lot. It's very hard to open and close them. The argon gas between the panes had to be released, rendering them not really double-glazed. At least not in the way double-glazed is supposed to work.
MetLife was a very cheap and sleazy landlord. They did a lot of things that were less than ethical, especially when they were tarting up the project with a view to going to market rate and selling it. They ceased to be the "Mother Met" of old and became a dodgy and avaricious outfit. They even got into trouble with the regulatory authorities because of some of their devious insurance practices. I know this for a fact because a relative worked for them and was horrified at the sleaze factor that crept in as the company grew more and more profit hungry after going public on the Market. It shouldn't be surprising though, considering that the old MetLife was devoutly racist, but that's another story.
To the jerk who doubted the veracity of the heat complaints:I got news for you.
MANY, MANY, MANY apartments have minimal to no heat.
To dismiss those complaints is insulting and offensive to the posters. There was an elderly lady in my building who was crying as she told me of the complete lack of heat in her apartment. It is not the same person posting over and over. Either you are a management troll or heartless. Which is it?
You sound like a rental agent or member of Management team.
Right… An agent or a management person… who just told you everything that the leasing staff tries to hide!
Makes perfect sense…
The lack of heat complaints are throughout Stuy Town.
Anyone who says differently is either a lackey of Management, the Tenants Association, or a fool.
I have to say that yesterday, around 9pm, my hands and body were cold. Period. The heating system does not work for all. That I know from experience. The tenant is not in charge of his or her own heating. Can the apartment be warmer? Yes, if one goes back in time and has thick wall to wall carpeting and heavy drapes, etc. But by how much will it be warmer? A few degrees? I don't know. These days few apartments are "like in the old days"....
STR,I have wall to wall carpeting and heavy drapes. So do my upstairs neighbor and my next door neighbor. Not my downstairs neighbor because, unfortunately, I know more about their life than I care to as their apartment is an echo chamber.
My upstairs neighbor sleeps in the living room because the bedroom is too cold and the elderly couple next door recently had a visit from their daughter who was so appalled at the lack of heat they were suffering with that she insisted they go home and stay with her and her family until the weather got warmer. She also filed complaints with HPD and is actively pursuing the situation. I don't know how much success she will have, but as she is a Social Worker by profession, she probably knows who and where to go to in order to make herself heard.
I am considering combatting the lack of heat by using space heaters, though I would rather not because I think they are dangerous. I've been here several years and remember when we would need to open windows during the cold months. That was when MetLife ran the place and was known to be one of the very best landlords in New York City. Boy! Did things change when they ceased to be a mutual insurance company and became a publicly-traded entity! We have been suffering from the deadly disease known as Corporate Greed ever since.
My downstairs neighbors, who are paying north of $3k per month, also complain about the lack of heat and tell me they can't wait to get out when their lease expires. In fact, that apartment has changed hands more times than I can even remember since the original tenant died several years ago. Nobody has stayed for longer than a year. Maybe that's why all the renovated apartments are occupied by "Welcome Home." Not worth making a name tag for them for the brief occupancy that is the norm here.
A puff of heat this morning and then poof...GONE!
Drafty windows...ugh!
Nothing all day today. Had to put space heaters on. This is such a wretchedly miserable place to live.
5:50 AM, Thursday, 3/3/22.
No heat. Pipes are ice cold.
43 degrees outside and not a puff of heat all day (or last night). Just saw on the news that there was a fire in an apartment somewhere in the City because of a space heater. Maybe this bunch of garbage wants us to burn to death. Makes me wonder.
WARNING TO ANYBODY READING THIS WHO IS THINKING OF RENTING HERE:
DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!!!! YOU WILL REGRET IT BIGLY!!!
Ever since Blackstone took over this property there has been an "air of evil" all over the place. Schwartzmann is on a moral level with Putin. Not that he commits mass murder and atrocities, but inasmuch as he is totally amoral and has no sense of human decency and empathy when it comes to anybody or anything. He will destroy lives, the environment, the planet. There is nothing positive or decent about men like him. He's an oligarch and they don't reach that level of wealth by having any morals or any trace of decency in their character. I used to think that Rob Speyer was Satan Incarnate, but Schwartzmann is much, much worse.
Evil is evil and always comes in human form.
Another major high-rise fire caused by a space heater. This one was in a NYCHA building in Brooklyn. I hope we have nothing like that happen here. It worries me that so many of us have to resort to using space heaters because of the lack of heat. Instead of putting up filthy CHP plants on the property, Management should be upgrading our crappy heating system which was clearly invented by a moron. Why do people like myself get starved of heat because the tenant with the sensors is cooking or maybe using a space heater. It is a really moronic and insane system. It's designed to parse out minimum heat and, in some cases, set neighbor against neighbor.
Just saw on NY1 there was another fire today caused by space heater. Not here, but could be
It is 6:45AM and 23 degrees outside.
It is 63 degrees in my freezer...um...I mean my bedroom!
Send up some fu*kin' heat!
Hane is closed inside for renovation. For me, Hane is of the best things about living here. I wish there would be more transparency about this "renovation." Hane inside seemed perfect, though crowded at certain times.
https://hanenyc.com/index.html
Just a note that one can still pickup at the side entrance on 20th Street.
"set neighbor against neighbor": Ignore Blackstone's PR baloney--this is what they really WANT to happen, since it strengthens their own position and agenda.
FWIW, I have a sensor in my apartment and it is cold all the time. I don't spend much time at home during the day and I have the kitchen and bathroom windows open slightly. I do not cook. The temp in my apartment is usually around 66 or 67 during the day. As I'm hardly ever home, it doesn't matter to me and I put on a space heater when I get home late at night. So, if they are sending up heat based on my apartment temperature, nobody is getting heat. My apartment is as cold as a well-digger's ass until I put the space heater on late at night.
Their much-vaunted sensor system is total garbage. So is the so-called "Management Team" they have working here. They are La Creme de La Crap.
It is cold all the time in my apartment. Calls and texts to Resident Services have been ignored. All this plus brown water coming out of the faucets. What more could anyone possibly want for $4,200 per month. Lucky me!
"It is cold all the time in my apartment. Calls and texts to Resident Services have been ignored. All this plus brown water coming out of the faucets. What more could anyone possibly want for $4,200 per month. Lucky me!"
This is a sheister company. It may be large and loaded with money, but it is not respected. People in the wealthy corporate world hold their noses and deal with Stephen Schwartzman. They know what he's like; they know he is a hustler and con-man and they know that he hires from the bottom - as in the pot scrapings. Just because he's a billionaire doesn't mean that he's respected, liked or trusted by others in that bracket of businessmen. I could tell you why and how I know this, but I would be violating confidentiality agreements if I did. Although I am retired, I still am bound by those agreements. However, I don't think I'm saying anything that most people would be surprised at. Schwartzman and his Blackstone outfit may be big and wealthy, but they are widely regarded as scum by similar entities that have an ethical and moral way of doing business. Blackstone is to the Residential Real Estate profession what Roy Cohn was to the Legal Profession.
Too bad we don't have a real Tenants Association to address the lack of heat situation. I'll be moving out soon and all I can say is "Good Riddance" to this property. I've been here for almost 5 years. I was thinking of letting my niece move in for the last year of my lease (Management would never know because they don't have a clue as to who lives here and who doesn't. LOL!) As it is, though, my smart niece said "Thanks, but no thanks" She stayed for a few weeks last year while I was working on an assignment overseas and she was taking a break from college to work on a project. She said that the noise from the crap events on the Oval prevented her from concentrating on her project in the evenings after her classes.
Like many people here, I've heard from the older tenants that it used to be great to live here. The Oval was once a beautiful tree park and there was a real security force and it was very well-kept, quiet and safe. Well, that must have been a century ago because nothing about this place fits any of that description now!
The hot water and heat have been shut down in our building overnight. Tenants were notified if they have an app. It is 8am this morning and nothing. Cold still. The Resident Office only opens starting 9am on the weekends. They will be "happy" to talk to me then.
A balmy 35 degrees outside this Saturday morning.
A not so balmy 64 degrees in my cold and drafty apartment.
How about pumping up some heat?
It should be up by 10AM.
I got this:
Dear Resident,
ConEdison has informed us they need to shut down steam service to your building. This has been scheduled for March 4th, 10pm – March 5th, 10am.
We understand this is an inconvenience and want to assure you that we’re working with ConEdison to reduce the time of this disruption. Our team will begin preheating your building on March 3rd and will continue to do so until work begins. This should allow us to maintain an adequate temperature throughout the entirety of the repair.
Sediment may build up once full service is restored. You can clear it by running the water for a few minutes. Please refrain from running your dishwasher during this time and keep all faucets in the off position.
For more information about steam outages, please call 1.800.75.CONED.
We are also available to help at ResidentServices@beamliving.com or 212.420.5000.
Regards,
Stephen Minichello
Director, Facilities Maintenance
STR same situation in my building. Last night before 10pm the temperature in the bedroom was 77 degrees. They installed a sensor last year and it's been colder in the apartment this winter. This morning no heat or hot water. On Thursday, I was diagnosed with pneumonia. I have lived here my entire life and knew when Met Life went public, that the party was over.
No heat. No hot water.
>>On Thursday, I was diagnosed with pneumonia.<<
The best to you.
I wonder if the disruption of hot water has anything to do with the transfer of Citi-bikes or the plant.
Every building in Stuy Town should have one of those water tower tubs outside like they had in Petticoat Junction. Hot water whenever you want! Hot babes, too!
After 10am. Still no hot water, heat. No call-back from Resident Services, too.
Now the app text says no heat or hot water till 1pm!
I just got an email, now it's 3pm!?!
Confirmed. Now it's 3pm. Once again, bullshit with this... Let's try for 5pm? How about opening up tomorrow? Oh, wait, that is Sunday. Monday then.
I called ConEd. They told me to call my management company, but my management company had told me to call ConEd. Do you sense the run around?
ConEd told me that a person had called earlier. A person. One individual. I supposed that's better than Resident Services usually telling me, "Oh, you're the first person that's phoning about this." Yeah, the run around. It's not fooling anyone, just aggravating.
the morons at Con Ed now say it won't be until 6 pm that heat/hot water will be restored !!!!!!!! This is like living in a tenement. The 3 Stooges could do a better job at fixing things. What a bunch of knuckleheads !!
Willie Steel
Yes, 6pm now. I'm starting to figure out the daily rent and if we are due a rent reduction.
It's past 6pm. Nothing.
18 hours without heat or hot water. For now.
This was sent right before 3pm;
Dear Resident,
ConEdison has informed us that heat and hot water is now projected to be restored by 6pm. Please be assured that we have been proactively working with ConEdison, including before and during the work, to try and minimize the impact to you. Unfortunately, we are not in control of this disruption. ConEdison was trying to repair a section of critical pipe supplying the community, and the repairs did not hold, so they now need to replace an entire section. Again, we share your frustration and continue to escalate the situation and offer our assistance to ConEdison to get this resolved as quickly as possible. Thank you for your continued patience and support.
Regards,
Stephen Minichello
Director, Facilities Maintenance
According to the above, Beam/Stuy Town has been "proactively working with ConEdison, including before and during the work".... Proactively working with? Hmm....
Waaaaay more info provided by Stuy town reporter than from calling resident services- thank you for the updates and info!!
Now it's 9pm. The whole day almost, if it happens.
No heat for 48 hours, apart from a short blast in kitchen and bathroom. Nothing in LR and BR. I am so totally sick of this place. Sick literally and spiritually. It is soul destroying living in such a vile place. If only we had a Tenants Association that could do more for us than arrange a tour of the heating system. They are low-life hucksters, just like the owner of this dump. It was they who brought Blackstone in. Their disbarred money-chisseling lawyer who is their Treasurer suggested to his neighbor in the Hamptons, Jonathan Gray, that Blackstone buy this place. I'm sure there was a big, big load of palm grease involved in that.
Dear Resident,
We are pleased to inform you that ConEdison has advised us that its repair work is now complete. Its team is now filling the main steam pipe and we anticipate heat and hot water will be fully restored around 9pm. We understand this is well beyond the initial time frame ConEdison provided and we appreciate your continued patience. As a reminder, you may need to run your taps to clear any sediment.
Thank you again for your calm and care during this unfortunate disruption.
Regards,
Stephen Minichello
Director, Facilities Maintenance
Not that most of us would notice the lack of heat as being anything different from the norm.
Past 9pm. Nothing.
I have neighbors on different lines who are getting heat. They need to check the shit in the basement that sends the heat up.
"Yes, 6pm now. I'm starting to figure out the daily rent and if we are due a rent reduction."
STR, some of us go without heat almost the entire winter. I think we should have a rent strike. Too bad we don't have a TA.
We have clowns from the hospitality industry running this dump. They know NOTHING about running an apartment complex.
Has anybody noticed how badly written the emails from "Management" are? Clearly, they are written by somebody who didn't have a good education. Hayduk's missives were always clear. Not necessarily truthful, but at least well-written.
They really do have the pot-scrapings working here. Never thought of it that way until I read the post from 1:03 AM. That poster was right on the mark when he/she made that comment.
It was past 10pm but the hot water finally kicked in.
I was just reading the comments on the two fb sites about the heat/hot water outage. I am in an apartment not in the group of buildings that were affected by the Con Ed outage and I haven't had any heat in more than 48 hours. Hot water, yes; heat, absolutely NONE! In fact, we never get heat at night no matter how frigid cold it is outside. I am on 14th Street. I'm amazed to read that some people get heat late at night. What the f*ck is wrong with the heat system? Why has my line had no heat at all since Thursday?
Dear Resident,
We wish to offer our most profound apologies for the interruption of heat and hot water that occurred recently. We understand your frustration, but this work was necessary to connect our new CHP plants to the Con Ed grid. We expect these plants to be online shortly, as we have donated generously to the campaigns of our current elected officials.
Also, recent events in Ukraine have shown us the need to be ever more energy independent. Instead of depending on energy sources from faraway places, like across 14th street, we can produce our own, right here in Stuynobyl!
As we said, we do empathize with your frustration, and as compensation would like to extend our gratitude by offering all residents a free cappuccino and tiramisu with any dinner ordered at Rosemary’s. Don’t worry, we won’t be cutting any services to offset this generous benefit; as part of our leasing arrangement with the restaurant we receive a nice cut of the profits. So, everyone wins!
Have a wonderful day, Good Neighbor!
(insert name of current manager here)
Sick of getting the Politburo script from RS. Yes I have a thermometer. It’s a free one issued by the Regime. It shows I have no heat. The pipes are cold too. What more do you need, you fucking morons?
Adam Rose is getting as snippy as Dunn. A newcomer asked a simple question and he told her to search fb pages for answer as it had been addressed before. Both he and Dunn should step back and take a break. Maybe even get a life.
Why does RS always want to visit the apartment? Why don't they go check the gizmos that send up the heat? They are supposedly going to come and check my neighbor's apartment. When? Who knows! Meantime, two old ladies are freezing to death. I have loaned them my space heater.
>>We wish to offer our most profound apologies for the interruption of heat and hot water that occurred recently. We understand your frustration, but this work was necessary to connect our new CHP plants to the Con Ed grid. We expect these plants to be online shortly, as we have donated generously to the campaigns of our current elected officials.<<
Close the real truth, I expect!
For a moment I thought this was real and I was beginning to steam!
Nice one, writer! Nice one!
March 6 at 7:41 AM. Brilliant! Absolutely Brilliant! Please keep posting your witty insights here!
That witty post sort of reminds me of Lux Living! Anybody remember him/her?
We need LL to come back and parody this bunch of useless, corrupt wastes of space!
I wonder if the filth who owns this dump has anything to do with Putin? A lot of Russian oligarchs own real estate in NYC. It wouldn't surprise me if Schwartzman, et al were pissing in the same pot as Putin. We know they have no morals or respect for humanity, so it's not outside the realms of possibility.
Did they fire the mostly competent people in Resident Services and replace them with low salary bottom-of-the-barrel replacements. Been trying to get a date for an apartment repainting and it's like pulling teeth with the person supposedly handling it.
Thankfully, I rarely have to deal with Resident Services for anything these days.
"this work was necessary to connect our new CHP plants to the Con Ed grid"
Still, what specific dirty, polluting fossil fuel is Blackstone receiving from Con Ed?
How is Con Ed delivering the dirty, polluting fossil fuel to Blackstone?
Is Blackstone buying unrefined fossil fuel from Con Ed or refining Con Ed's fossil fuel onsite inside the former STPCV resdidential complex?
The only thing we know is Blackstone intends to somehow silently refine dirty, polluting fossil fuel inside the former STPCV residential complex, generate then sell electricity to Con Ed, keep the steam and force the dirty, polluting, poison residue into our lungs.
Does anyone else notice the decline in the property?
Filth and garbage strewn around, unclean hallways, mailbox area looks like a storage facility, non functioning laundry, transients, general lack of community respect.
How sad!
"They know NOTHING about running an apartment complex."
"I wonder if the filth who owns this dump has anything to do with Putin?"
"Does anyone else notice the decline in the property?"
With Blackstone there is no bottom.
"Does anyone else notice the decline in the property?"
This can't be a serious question.
The halls in my building haven't been cleaned in ages. I know our porters work very hard, but I suspect that their numbers have been cut to the bone. They have so much to do cleaning up after the filthy scum who defile the recycling areas. The garbage pails outside are filled to overflowing. There really is no bottom when it comes to Beam Living. The absolute dregs of humanity are running this place now. May they all rot in Hell.
But then, we've got music by the fountain and that is all that matters. Somebody should throw the bastards into the fountain.
No heat all day today. Absolutely lovely place to live. Can't wait to tell my friends about it. I'm sure they'll be clamoring to rent here.
Outside temp in 30s all day (and dropping now); inside heat in 60s all day. What a shithole! What f*cking disgusting shithole!
I don't think there is anybody running this place. There's nobody at the helm and it is a sinking ship. Have ordered a space heater from BB&B. Hope it gets here soon. We plan on breaking our lease and they can whistle dixie for the last month's rent. Cannot stand these substandard living conditions and these substandard assholes they have running the place [into the ground]. They should all go back to their old jobs - running dirty restaurants and fleabag hotels featuring substandard "entertainment."
So many attacks taking place along 14th Street and in the subways. This is City has gone to hell. It is as bad as it was 40 years ago. We need a Giuliani/Bratton-type of administration. Not that I ever liked Giuliani himself, but we definitely a tough Mayor and DA who will put a stop to this. Several of my friends have bought tazers, mace and one carries a spray bottle of ammonia. I would be afraid of such weapons being turned on me because I'm a short, skinny female. If carrying a fire arm were legal in NYC I would most certainly get one. I have friends in Phoenix, where open-carry is the norm. It's safer to walk the streets there than here. Of course, they don't have wussy progressive types of politicians, but that's another matter.
I think safety in the subways will improve gradually. Mayor Adams has addressed the homeless situation already. I travel in the subways 3 days a week and I have seen a definite decrease in homeless lying around the stations and on trains. Not 100 percent yet of course, but a definite improvement.
A lot of the people who hang out on 14th Street, selling their stolen stuff, go down to the subway at night to keep warm. I see that the elevators are out of order a lot lately. They are also usually swimming in piss.
We need safety in the subways to improve NOW, not gradually. Dammit, I am spending so much on cab fares! My life is valuable to me. I am not going to consciously jeopardize it because of the shit that roams the subways, looking for victims. I realize that I am lucky that I can afford cabs and car service, but thanks to the "Progressives" like deBozo and Adams, those who cannot afford to protect themselves are left to take their chances.
Most of the scum predators are not the mentally ill; most of them are drug addicts. Round em up and lock em up.
Stuy Town maintenance has plummeted.
Garbage throughout the property, throughout the grounds and in the halls.
The area around the building mailboxes is a disgrace.
Looks like a UPS or Fed Ex storage facility.
Rapidly becoming a dump.
One step above the "projects."
They just cleaned out a tunnel of homeless in the subway station at 14th St. The vendors are still an issue and the responsibility of Congressperson Rivera. It has definitely improved inside the station but not above ground.
If you haven’t been in the subways, how do you know that there is no improvement?
Yes, and building residents throw their junk out on the shelves like it is a flea market. Disgusting. Management should put up a sign about that. Newspapers, books, maps, candy and other crap all in our lobby.
"If you haven’t been in the subways, how do you know that there is no improvement?"
To whom is that question addressed? I use the subway as infrequently as possible and then I make a point of getting in the car where the conductor is. You don't have to even use the subways to know how bad they are. You just have to watch the news. Duh!
@6:34 PM: You are absolutely right. I have never seen the property look so dissolute and run down as it is now. I've been here 40 years and I remember when it was referred to as "an oasis in the City." At one time the advertising blurb described it as "A River Runs Around it and A Park Runs Through It." Well, the river is still there, but the park has been totally trashed and bears absolutely no resemblance to the way it was before the vampires descended on the property and sucked all the life blood out of it.
My hall hasn't been cleaned in weeks. There are patches where the neighbors dogs have shit and pissed and they are permanent parts of the "decor" at this point. The porters are overworked and, I suspect, undermanned. They do the best they can with all the shit that is left in the recycling area by the filthy crap that now rents here. I suspect that most of the offenders are the students who are here in very large numbers.
I don't recycle anymore. The porters have enough to do without that extra burden. On top of that there are the compost bins and who knows what is put in those! I saw one woman putting a plastic container of cooking grease in ours. I put glass bottles and jars aside and take them down to the recycling area when I have enough of them to make the trip worthwhile. One of the porters once told me that when people hurl glass items down the chute it can send up splinters and get in the eyes of the porters. Another one (a lady porter) got a serious gash to her hand caused by broken glass.
So, how much further down the toilet will what was once a lovely place to live go? If this so-called "management" would spend as much time and energy into keeping the buildings and grounds in good shape as they spend in thinking up and organizing the crappy "events" and money-making projects, we would all be a lot better off. I made a vow (which I will not break) to never put a penny more than what I pay in rent to further Blackstone's profits. I won't shop at any of the businesses on the perimeter of the property and would rather starve than spend a nickel in one of their tawdry eateries (including Rosemary's).
It's not surprising that they can't keep people who work in the top positions here. I can't believe that Blackstone treats its employees any better than its tenants. As for Resident Services, that's a sad joke. I don't think anybody actually works there. I get the impression that they've all been replaced by outsourced people who haven't got a clue what they are doing.
Rainy, damp, cloudy day, 43 degrees outside, 64 degrees inside my apartment.
Naturally, NOT A HINT OF HEAT!
4:00 PM, not saying that the subways are 💯 safe, but first hand experience shows that there has been a clean up. Don’t rely on the news for everything which sensationalizes things.It is your option to not travel underground, but don’t deny what you won’t experience.
I agree with everything that 6:34 is saying except that the resident services reps are generally pleasant and often competent. The place has become a dorm dump slum. As for Rosemary’s, management supported restaurant, it is terrible. Tried it twice. Never again. I think management pads the 5 star reviews on Yelp. I see the same reviewers raving about it. Really lousy food.
"So, how much further down the toilet will what was once a lovely place to live go?"
With Blackstone there is no bottom.
I ate at Rosemary's once and thought the food was horrible. There is a plethora of really good restaurants in New York City. We certainly don't have to eat (and pay through the nose) for this crap. Does Blackstone/Beam Living think we are all moronic hicks from the boondocks? I get the impression that they do. You can get the best food in the world in New York City, but not by patronizing chintzy, but overpriced, greasy spoons owned by private equity parasites! A meal in a diner is better in every way and waaay less expensive than the overpriced crap at Rosemary's.
Why are there so many homeless mentally ill people living on the streets now? I know there has always been this problem, but it seemed to get better for a while. Now it's out of control. I know the "crusties" come here for summer, but they're a different story altogether. It's really horrible just trying to walk on 14th Street (mostly on the South side of the street) because they are sprawled out everywhere. The homeless mentally ill and the people selling crap on the street have taken over.
Maybe if they all moved to Park Avenue or the upper part of Fifth Avenue (near the Museum) something would be done about them.
That Werberbird on the Tenants FB always, always has to have the last word. Always has to argue with people just for the hell of it. She must be absolute HELL to live with! I pity her family, but maybe they are all like her and deserve each other.
32 degrees outside and no f*cking heat inside. Thermometer just at 69 degrees, so can't call RS or HPD. They just skirt within the law. I hate these rotten bastards.
Like an ice box now. No heat.
It's almost 9:30pn. Still no heat. Outside the temperature is now at 30%. Soon it will be below that.
"It's almost 9:30pn. Still no heat. Outside the temperature is now at 30%. Soon it will be below that."
what is the temperature on your thermometer? If it is below the legal requirement, I hope you will call or go online to 311. If you go online, attach a photograph of the thermometer.
Do you have a space heater, STR? Also, do you live on a low floor? The lower floors are always the coldest.
"You are absolutely right. I have never seen the property look so dissolute and run down as it is now. I've been here 40 years and I remember when it was referred to as "an oasis in the City." At one time the advertising blurb described it as "A River Runs Around it and A Park Runs Through It." Well, the river is still there, but the park has been totally trashed and bears absolutely no resemblance to the way it was before the vampires descended on the property and sucked all the life blood out of it.
My hall hasn't been cleaned in weeks. There are patches where the neighbors dogs have shit and pissed and they are permanent parts of the "decor" at this point."
So, so true. There are piles of shit in the fenced in areas that have been there so long that they're calcified.
It's scandalous that we have group of cretons that call themselves a "tenants association". For shame. It was the tenants association that brokered this deal (along with other scumbags). To have them sit idly by and say NOTHING about the shit, piss and litter everywhere around the property is shameful.
>>what is the temperature on your thermometer? If it is below the legal requirement, I hope you will call or go online to 311. If you go online, attach a photograph of the thermometer.
Do you have a space heater, STR? Also, do you live on a low floor? The lower floors are always the coldest.<<
I called Resident Services and no one answers at this time and you can't leave a message. I just use the simple "Are the pipes cold?" and yes they are. "Are your fingers and nose cold?" Yes, for many hours. For sanity and not to get too angry where blood shoots out of my eyeballs, I don't call anyone, including 311. I've called their number before several times, and each time calling them was a waste of time and effort. Has anyone had success all these years? I'm currently not using my space heater. A space heater is against the lease, though it is one of the most popular items here. Probably I will use one tonight, though it doesn't warm up the place unless one is sitting on it. But, yes, I do live on a lower floor.
Space heaters are used by many, many tenants.
Particularly the elderly.
There is an older disabled woman in my building who uses three!
A disaster waiting to happen!
How about some heat?
Get rid of the worthless "sensors" and pump up some heat.
Only a matter of time before a tragedy.
STR, file a 311 complaint online. I found that I got a response that way. This place is totally NOT in compliance with City laws and they need to be dealt with by the City. Unfortunately, our politicians are so corrupt that they don't do anything for us.
As you are a published writer (and a good one), is there any way you could get the message out to the Press and the general public that we are being forced to live in almost Dickensian conditions? I wish the TA would step up to the plate, but they are a totally corrupt bunch of losers and don't do anything for the tenants. At least nothing good. Steinberg likes to preen in front of cameras when there is some kind of press conference, but she never addresses the problems here. The TA is not on our side. The TA does not represent us in any way whatsoever. The TA is the worse kind of enemy because they pose as being our advocates when they are absolutely the opposite. The TA is the enemy and is an accessory to Management.
STR, file a complaint online. I received an email from HPD inquiring if the situation with the heat had been rectified.
The best space heaters are the ones that look like a radiator. So long as you plug it into the air conditioning electric point, it is safe. I never leave mine on when I leave the apartment, but I often have it on overnight. Not the safest way to live, I admit. We are forced into this unsafe way of living because of our insatiably greedy scumbag landlord and the totally useless and corrupt TA. Speaking of the TA, why don't they just go away? Just an arm of, and accessory and enabler, of Management.
I have one of those radiator heaters. I don't use it if my roommate uses his heater, as the combination will be too much for the fuse. (Old wiring for us.) As far as getting the message out, I do what I can, but I haven't gone too public as I would have to reveal who I am. But I think the message is out, by me and others, and it doesn't make that much, if any, of a difference, sad to say.
Are you not wired for air conditioning?
No. My apartment does not have, or need (except for a day or two during the summer) air conditioning.
STR with no AC: You are poster boy (in all respects) for the tenants Blackstone is trying to get rid of (one way or another). Stay strong!
"No. My apartment does not have, or need (except for a day or two during the summer) air conditioning."
STR, I'm not saying you're old, but I do believe that a lot of the elderly people opted not to be wired for AC because of the cost. They are the very people who feel the cold intensely and are at risk for illness due to being cold. They are also the very people who are likely to have space heaters, thereby endangering their and other people's lives because of the risk of fire.
Bottom line: this bloodsucking bunch of bastards who own this place have no regard for human life and certainly not for people's right to be comfortable in their homes. They are totally despicable because something could be done about the erratic heating system we have.
>>STR, I'm not saying you're old...<<
I had a good laugh on that one! But, yes, quite a few elderly tenants opted out of AC because of the cost, which is charged every month of the year, and used to make one's rent even higher during lease time.
A particularly nasty piece of work, a "neighbor" whose name is "Welcome Home," decided late this afternoon to initiate a 911 call to accuse this writer of a serious crime. While I am not 100% positive it was she, and not either of her two roommates, a reliable person recognized her voice speaking to a whole passel of city cops with her lying tale today. And she does this young-blonde-breathy-helpless, etc. act. I've heard her pull it before on a longtime Security Guard who ended up playing janitor to this "sweet young thing."
I believe her unwarranted and bogus summoning of police here was malicious and intended to cause harm to me and mine. It was false, serious, ugly, and yet also literally laughable. It was thoroughly investigated by the police and thus found to be false, to put it mildly.
This is one of the young ones in one of the hundreds? thousands? of apartments they pack with students or other thoroughly unsocialized and selfish, shallow somewhat older brats.
I truly would like to be of a mind to forgive her, and even pray for her moral redemption. If anyone knows how I can achieve it, please post it here.
7:36 p.m. "They are also the very people who are likely to have space heaters, thereby endangering their and other people's lives because of the risk of fire." - about older folks.
Oh, joy. This reads like my two stepdaughters during the worst of COVID-19 in 2020 who pretty plainly wished their father and myself dead because wearing masks and isolating was ruining their "beautiful" year, their "beautiful" life. WE WERE IN THE WAY, HAD LIVED OUR LIVES. If we died from COVID-19, it was perfectly fine. We were old; they were young.
I JUST LOVE THE SPECIES I WAS BORN INTO.
>>whose name is "Welcome Home,"<<
This Welcome Home family is getting bigger and bigger in Stuy Town.... Seriously, this seems to be a violation of landlord-tenant rules.
I think the complaint was against our heartless landlord, not elderly people.
You could take legal action against these people. I recommend you consult a lawyer. False accusations and defamation of character are actionable crimes.
We can thank that slimey Hayduk asshole for eliminating names from the Directories and the doors.
Clearly, Management is deliberately withholding heat during the winter months and is very much aware of it. You only have to read the TA and non-TA Facebooks to see what a big problem it is project-wide. Blackstone is cutting costs to the bone and turning what was once a decent place to live into a NYCHA-type project.
I think the people who own Blackstone have the same genetic make-up as Vladimir Putin. Chips off the same block as in totally without morals, decency and humanity. Power and Money are the only things that matter to them.
At this point, I have zero respect for the people who work for them, Kennedy and the whole bunch in Management. These are people who clearly have no qualms about getting their paychecks from the most amoral and vicious Private Equity firm on the face of the earth.
"We can thank that slimey Hayduk asshole for eliminating names from the Directories and the doors."
Totally against the law. How does Blackstone get away with all the illegal shit it does? Must pay hefty bribes to local politicians. Remember the days when Garodnick used to be the Belle of the REBNY Ball? Didn't he used to sit on Rob Speyer's knee? All our so-called representatives are as bent as hairpins.
He also expanded the terrible, noisy oval events and ignored heat complaints. Mr. Nice Guy who you could e-mail and get an answer from, but the hypocrisy was apparent. He fooled many old time tenants.
On the TA FB a tenant has posted photographs of a thermometer registering very, very low temperatures. Why don't these people call 311 as many times as they need to and file complaints online with HPD. HPD will respond and follow up if the complaint is made online. 311 tends to be a bit of a waste of time unless you really get pushy - ask for name of operator and tell them you are recording the call. It's illegal to record a phone call in NY if you don't notify the other party.
I hold Garodnick along with the despicable so called TA responsible for selling us out to this evil corporation. I will never forget the first TA meeting introducing the new owners. Garodnick was falling all over them. I hope he never holds office again.
Have they fired everybody in RS? Nobody answers the phone or calls back. This place gets more and more NYCHA every day. I think that's the way they want it to be. If that is the case, then they should drop the rents significantly. Nobody should be paying what we are paying to live in a badly-run, cold shithole. A badly-run, cold shithole is EXACTLY what this place is now. Each new "Manager" makes it worse and worse. This Kennedy woman is head of resident experience or some such ridiculous and ludicrous title. She is making damn sure that the "resident experience" here is miserable, uncomfortable and even life-threatening. I wish she and her miserable kind would just get out of our lives and stay out.
Blackstone/Beam Living are the Putin of the real estate world. They destroy and desecrate everything and everyone they can get their hands on and leave them miserable and injured. Or even worse. They do it for power and money. Human life is, in their opinion, only for the purpose of them to sadistically enjoy destroying it as they rub their orgasm over all the money they will make from the destruction.
Always remember that a piece of filth on the TA Board (a disbarred thief of an attorney) is the one who suggested to Jonathan Gray that Blackstone should take over our homes. He and Gray were neighbors in the Hamptons. I wonder if the disreputable Board member (I believe he is the Treasurer) pays market rate for his PCV apartment? I doubt it.
The TA has so few members now, everybody in it can be an "officer" with a title. They must really think highly of...themselves.
The TA is SHIT. They (the leadership) are dishonest, ass-kissing scum. They kiss the asses of all the despicable politicians as well as the filth that owns this place. They have not done a decent thing on behalf of tenants in the last 25 years. They should just go away and stop pretending to be a TA. They are quislings, as are our so-called elected representatives.
I have a question concerning the compactors. When we put our garbage down the compactor chute, does it get compacted in the actual building or does it just go into a container and taken away to get compacted elsewhere?
The problem I had with 311 is that they don’t come immediately after the complaint. They came to me a few days later and I believe that they have to notify management when they are coming. Of course, I had heat when the city inspector came.
"The problem I had with 311 is that they don’t come immediately after the complaint. They came to me a few days later and I believe that they have to notify management when they are coming. Of course, I had heat when the city inspector came."
Same here. It is a total waste of time. They all piss in the same pot. Considering the considerable number of tenants here who complain of little or no heat, it is impossible that the City and our politicians are unaware of it.
It's after 2 in the morning and there is a bunch of noisy skate board kids on the 14th Street Loop (Ave A end). They are yelling and making so much noise with their stupid boards and jumps. If you live on a low floor (as I do) it's impossible to get any rest. I doubt they live here. There was a time when "Security" would have sent them packing. I miss those days. That's when this was a clean, quiet and safe place to live. A lot cheaper too.
I will never forget the first TA meeting introducing the new owners. Garodnick was falling all over them. I hope he never holds office again.
He was appointed by the new mayor as the Chairman of the NYC Planning Commission.
He’ll save NYC like he “saved” Stuy Town. Should be fun to watch. I’ll bet little Dan has big plans…
Has Blackstone considered locating a Pot Shop in The Sty? Idiots Adams and Hochul think these will "save NY," so why not here? Of course, for residents and their guests only. One Vanderbilt Tower's construction set Garodnik up for life (financially), but he still wants more....
"He’ll save NYC like he “saved” Stuy Town. Should be fun to watch. I’ll bet little Dan has big plans…"
Dan Garodnick could not save anything. Since his departure from the CC and the onset of the Coronavirus, the City has gone down to the deepest depths of the sewer. Of course, I'm not blaming him for that! But if he is going to "save the City" he's got his work cut out and he will need all the help he can get. We have suffered under Progressives who care more about the thugs and criminals than they care about the regular hard-working, tax-paying New Yorkers who struggle to make a life and raise their families here. We are totally beset with crazy people, dangerous crazy people, drug addicts, drug dealers, gun-toters, knife-toters and people who will just use their bodies to sucker punch you, shove you under a train, knock you down and stomp on you. I could go on, but I think it suffice to say that the regular decent New Yorkers are totally overwhelmed and under constant threat from this underbelly - filthy underbelly - of humanity and nothing is done about the situation.
The felons go through a revolving door in the Courthouse (that's if they even bother to show up for their court date) and basically nobody gives a flying fuck!
New York City is like Dodge City and we need a Wyatt Earp to show up! Ain't gonna happen though and the Clantons will continue to run the show and the City will go down the sewer even more and more until there are none but human sewer rats living here.
Coming! Glutton industrial vacuums! Right now in the back of my building, workers are being shown how to use Glutton, which looks like a super-duper vacuum cleaner on steroids.
Read about it hear:
https://www.glutton.com/en/page/glutton-collect-the-vacuum-cleaner.html
Is it very noisy? They love to ADD noise to our "living experience".
Has Resident Services closed down? They NEVER answer the phone, don't call back and their text response is a bot. I miss Tishman Speyer - and I thought they were the worst of the worst. I think Blackstone things it's running a concentration camp.
>>Is it very noisy? They love to ADD noise to our "living experience".<<
No, it is silent. Watching the workers and the demo, I wonder if just the old-fashioned pick by hand and rake is not better. Of course, the old way is not new and can't be promoted like this will be by Beam.
Resident Services seems to be defunct. Nobody answers the phone or calls back. I guess that in the event of an emergency situation we will just have to call a plumber or electrician from outside and then deduct the charge from our rent. I would most definitely do that and be happy to stand up to these cheap, incompetent bastards in Court.
Really, I don't know why the press doesn't report what horrors we have to endure here. Are they "buying" the NYT RE section and the other regional papers? We hear about the horrors that happen in City-subsidized housing, but everything here gets buried. I'm beginning to think we have the same free press that Moscow does.
Entire NYT RE section is bought and paid for, since it's the only "industry" left in the City these days. One big advertisement.
If you have any doubts as to what a fetid slum this property has deteriorated into, just read the TA and non-TA Facebooks. How the hell they have the big steel balls to tout this property as "luxury" and charge us the rents they demand is totally beyond my comprehension. OK. So the apartments may be pretty spacious if you are living alone or with a partner in a one-bedroom or a family in a two or three bedroom (original set-up), but most of the apartments are chopped up to be dorms or shared by a non-family set-up. The apartments are cold, uninsulated against weather and noise. The project was not designed for what it's being used for and, at best, is a miserable and overpriced dump. The cretinous "events" and "amenities" are nothing more than scams. The buildings are old, cold, dirty, shabby and very poorly maintained. It is impossible to get through to Resident Services so nothing is ever fixed.
The plumbing is shot to hell. One of the reasons for this is because they are constantly fixing up vacant apartments for the next victim and all of the plaster and dust goes down the plumbing lines. I can't take a quick shower without my bathtub filling up and taking a couple of hours to empty. If I can't get a live one in RS tomorrow I am dumping a couple of jugs of Liquid Plumber down the drain and hoping that will solve the problem. The appliances are bottom-of-the-line crap.
If I could afford it I would take out an ad in the NYT advising what a total shit-hole this overpriced dump is and how we are lied to by the "Leasing Office." I know that the long-term tenants don't complain and just suck it up because they have low rents (and even those are too high for such a disgusting and poorly-maintained project as this).
I've just about had it with their lies and "misrepresentation" used to lure more victims in. Without the students I doubt they would have new people moving in. But as P.T. Barnum said "There's one born every minute." He was referring to suckers, of course.
To add insult to injury we have laundry facilities that comprise non-working, overpriced machines that are totally in line with the general inferior and second (or third) rate offerings from "management." Thank God for the inexpensive and first rate local laundry services.
Lease is up in June and can't wait to get out and spread the word that this is the worst place to rent an apartment in all of NYC.
URGENT -
WILL SOMEONE PLEASE POST HERE UNDERSTANDABLE DETAILS ABOUT THE "POWER PLANTS" BEING BUILT OR ALREADY BUILT HERE?
I DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT, EXACTLY, WOULD GO ON INSIDE THESE MONSTROSITIES. MORE TO THE POINT, I DO NOT UNDERSTAND EXACTLY WHAT WOULD BE PUMPED INTO THE AIR WE BREATHE.
SOMEONE HAS RELATED A HORRIFYING SCENARIO TO ME ABOUT IT. I WOULD LIKE TO READ THE REALITY.
IF IT IS WHAT WAS RELATED TO ME, I WOULD LIKE TO IMMEDIATELY BEGIN ORGANIZING HERE, ONLINE, ON THE TENANT FACEBOOK PAGE, AND CONTACTING VARIOUS ORGANIZATIONS (NOT ANY ALREADY DISCUSSED HERE) TO STOP THIS PERMANENTLY.
THANK YOU.
Entire NYT RE section is bought and paid for, since it's the only "industry" left in the City these days. One big advertisement.
The Entire NYT is bought and paid for, not just the real estate section. They just figured out the Hunter Biden laptop is real. They were scooped by the NY Post, seriously, the NY Post. The old grey lady is dead.
@1:27 PM - the pathologically avaricious criminals who own this place are building/have built fossil-fuel burning power stations on the property. They will bilge cancer-causing toxins into the air. They are doing this because they can sell the generated power to Con Ed and add more blood money to their tainted coffers.
Our elected politicians are totally on board with this because they are getting paid REALLY BIG bribes to look the other way.
We have a Putinesque landlord with no sense of decency, no moral conscience and a total disregard for human (or any other form of) life. We have politicians who are cut from the same cloth and have absolutely no sense of conscience, decency, morality whatsoever. We are at the mercy of Putinesque monsters who care only about money. The only pol who probably isn't cut from the same cloth is Hoylman. Unfortunately, he is a standalone minority of one. The rest of them are SCUM. Our LL is beyond SCUM. I wish them nothing but grief and suffering in their tawdry lives because I do believe that what goes around comes around.
"The Entire NYT is bought and paid for, not just the real estate section. They just figured out the Hunter Biden laptop is real. They were scooped by the NY Post, seriously, the NY Post. The old grey lady is dead."
What does Hunter Biden's laptop have to do with the subject of this blog?
What’s with these new laundry machines? We’re they purchased at a fire sale? Most of them are out of order and they have less capacity than the old ones. It’s impossible to read the indications for which compartment is for what. Absolute total garbage. I used them for the first and last time today. Back to Prestige or 14th Street Wash and clean. Both excellent nd affordable.
What does Hunter Biden's laptop have to do with the subject of this blog?
What does your question have to do with the subject of this blog?
Laundry machines: pretty funny.
The last machines which were bought and supplied en masse were inferior. A good deal of speculation was made concerning the price for those machines, in addition to their worthiness.
It reads to me here that these newest machines are even worse garbage than the last crop.
By design. Deliberately.
Like everything else around here. Constructive eviction. Harassment. Endangerment. Sometimes even what I consider to be wanton disregard for life.
Sign in lobby at 515 East 14th Street imploring residents not to let their pets urinate or defecate in stairwells and hallways. Does this go for residents and delivery personnel as well? As one resident told me, "When ya' gotta go, ya' gotta go!"
Dog sh*t, dog piss and possibly human excrement in stairwell at 515 East 14th Street.
Landlord put a sign in lobby by mailboxes: Don't Do This
No doubt, this will have a dramatic effect...not.
The NYCHA projects are a step up from this place. Anybody who pays what they are now asking to rent here is a total idiot with more money than sense. The fact that they are filling the dump up with students is proof that there is a shortage of total idiots.
Powers and Rivera on Facebook crowing about meeting the mayor’s committee about the disgusting conditions on 14th St. About time. Where have they been for two years? And posters thank Powers. Ridiculous. Maybe it got out to the press or higher authorities finally.
Powers and Ribera held another press conference today on 14th and First to discuss the ongoing problems on that block. I think this is probably their 5th or 6th one of these where they promise change and the community sees squat. They are now both fully indoctrinated in the NYC democratic machine that talks a big game but gets absolutely nothing accomplished.
This is driving me crazy, so let me ask here. Once in a while, I see a blind woman resident that usually is led by her daughter. They live at 450 E 20 St. I got her phone number before Covid, as I would walk with her to the bus stop in the mornings, but it appears I lost the number. I was at the building, but with the new system, I don't know her last name to buzz her, and PS was no help at all. I live across the loop, so I've seen her occasionally from my window. If you know who and where, please drop me line at stuytownreporter@gmail.com ,,,, Thanks!
Big puddle of pee and a chewed up stick on the floor by the elevators on our T level this morning.
I’m sure it was all caught on camera, but do you think anything will come of it? Other than telling the porter to get a mop?
Not sure that either Powers or Rivera can do much about the situation on 14th street.
Enforcement against street vendors is no longer handled by the NYPD, now it’s the DCWP, which is basically toothless. Agents can write summonses, but if the vendor won’t or can’t provide ID, they simply write a ticket in the name of John Doe. Good luck collecting on that! You can station police officers there, but they can only address criminal activity, not illegal vending.
If anything, the two councilpersons should be pushing for a return to NYPD enforcement, but again, good luck with that!
3 bums drinking beer on a bench near the
exercise playground just off the 14th Street Loop. They’re spilling over onto the property now.
I came of age in the early 70s and I remember that the most strident admonishment was being aware of the numerous shootings, stabbings and other gruesome methods of murder that were abroad in this City.
As time went by crime became less of a paramount situation and maybe we became complacent. When Giuliani became Mayor the crime stats dropped significantly. Couldn't have been a coincidence that public trust in the safety of our City was buoyed significantly.
I don't particularly want another Giuliani because he was patently racist. However, I would like a Mayor and Police Commish, etc., who actually care about the record-breaking crime rate we are experiencing now in 2022. Adams seems to be the most incompetent and stupid person ever elected. Even worse than DeB. I don't blame it all on the pandemic; I do blame it mostly on so-called "Progressive" politicians like our empty suit of a Mayor and the whiners who cling to him. Ocasio-Cortez are you listening.
There has to be a happy medium between sub-Facists like Giuliani and totally reckless "Progressives" like DeBlasio, Cortez and their ilk. As a registered Democrat who is so totally pissed off at the status quo at his time, I would probably vote for Atilla the Hun than some weepy, wet-ass Dem. I hope I don't have to make that choice, but let it be known that [up until now] this life-long Democrat is so totally pissed off at the way this City is run, that I would probably vote for anybody but a Dem and definitely NOT a "Progressive."
Get the filth off the streets. Put them somewhere where they can't harm themselves or anybody else. Forget the bleeding heart shit, people have to take responsibility for themselves unless they are totally unable to. Those who are totally unable to take care of themselves and who pose a threat to others should be put away.
record-breaking crime rate we are experiencing now in 2022.
This is just plain untrue. While crime rates are certainly up, year over year, they are nowhere near the levels they were in the late 80s, early 90s. It’s a statistical fact.
Not to say NYC’s dirty floor couldn’t use a good mopping, but over-the-top hyperbole will only get you eye rolls.
Bum sleeping in stairwell at 5** East 20th Street!
Public Safety called!
Wow!
I am considering e-mailing this reply to Siobhan in response to the e-mail announcement that April rent is due. Whaddya think?
Dear Ms. Kennedy –
I began writing the following to you last night. I am asking you to take immediate action for the protection of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper’s tenants against the noise, and disturbances, which constitute the infliction of injurious behaviors by hundreds of human beings each weekend night throughout the year.
During and after the hours of noise disturbance caused by apartment 7G’s inhabitants (please see below), groups of people (college-age) walked around the 14th Street Loop screaming, yelling, shouting, calling, laughing loudly, sometimes stopping for various lengths of time to engage in this disturbance.
This goes on EVERY weekend night with few exceptions, throughout the year. From 8:00 p.m. until 5:30 or so the following morning, this is what tenants are subjected to, Ms. Kennedy.
It is 10:25 p.m. Saturday, March 26, 2022.
I am prevented from living with any peace in my own home, for which your employer expects April 2022 rent.
There has been: Screaming, yelling, raucous laughter penetrating the closed windows in at least three of my apartment’s rooms for well over an hour or so, with no sign of letting up. I believe this could be, among other possibilities, the “party before the party” on a weekend night – this phenomenon was described to me some years ago by one of the Security personnel. This is the gathering of unsafe numbers of college-age students in an apartment before they troop out hours later, screaming, shouting, laughing, to either walk to a nearby bar, or stand in the street in front of the windows and homes of sleeping people as they wait for cabs to other parties or bars.
At this moment, the disturbance, preventing me from reading, writing, thinking, sleeping, is taking place in Apt. 7G of this building, 2 Stuyvesant Oval. This is not the first time this has happened in that apartment.
I pay rent for a home which in which I am protected, by my landlord, from ongoing disturbance of the peace. Quiet enjoyment is one of the conditions and situations for which I am paying the landlord.
There is precious little of that on weekend nights, and during warmer weather, many week nights (the “Events” on the Oval, which can literally shake my floors and my body’s bones for as many as six (6) hours or more from midafternoon (“sound check”) until after 9 p.m.
Security, which is: (a) inadequate, (b) overburdened and hamstringed by strictures to do nothing, (c) do little, (d) lie, (e) metaphorically read from scripts which only further distress and upheave tenants, did exactly that for me tonight.
Thank you in advance for doing what is right,
(Me)
The response, if any, will be a simple: "Thanks for telling me your concern. We are attempting.... Reach out to Public Safety. Have a good day."
>>record-breaking crime rate we are experiencing now in 2022.
This is just plain untrue. While crime rates are certainly up, year over year, they are nowhere near the levels they were in the late 80s, early 90s. It’s a statistical fact.<<
I'm not disagreeing with you, but where are "the facts"...
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