An article in the New York Post today confirms that Stuyvesant Town's pressure walls have been indefinitely discontinued. The reason? The ghetto-fabulous walls which allowed tenants to turn their "luxury" apartments into TB-friendly Petri dishes are also potential fire hazards. The hell you say.
Aside from preventing sufficient amounts of light and oxygen from entering the apartments the walls posed a serious threat to the safety of firefighters battling blazes throughout the complex. "It's hard enough trying to gain access through those narrow windows," said one firefighter we spoke with. "But to make us navigate an unsteady maze of flammable walls once we're inside the apartment is just plain cruel."
The pressurized wall system is just another setback for Tishman Speyer in their efforts to increase the dwindling occupancy rate in the 110-building complex. The walls were offered to tenants, at their own expense, as an option that allowed them to divide their living room into two separate rooms. The additional bedroom would allow tenants to have a "luxury" roommate in order to afford a $3,500 a month, one-bedroom apartment.
Meanwhile architects are desperately scrambling to redesign the forthcoming Oval Lounge which heavily relied upon the use of the DIY walls. The city has halted construction on the lounge because the original plans called for pressure walls to be used to create VIP rooms for guests. A city official joked, "why not just call it Cocoanut Grove," referring to the infamous Boston fire in which 492 people perished in an overcrowded nightclub with insufficient exits.
Everybody here we go
C'mon party people
Throw your hands in the air
C'mon party people
Wave 'em like you don't care
Everbody say ho
The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire
We don't need no water let the mother f****r burn
Burn mother f****r burn
Ha ha ha! T-S! Suckers!
Which one bedroom apartment in ST has TWO walk in closets !! Man I got gyped.
The one bedroom with two walk-in closets is leased as a junior two; one of the closets is billed as an extra bedroom.
To those who are affected by this, we're forming a group to take civil action against Stuy Town. You can email us at nowallst@gmail.com.
Spread the word!
Anyone remember the fire at the Happy Land Social Club in the Bronx several years ago when hundreds of people were incinerated in a fire in an illegally converted nightclub that was set alight by an asshole with a grudge and a match? I would hope and pray that such a thing wouldn't happen here, but all you need is a dumbass who is smoking (anything) and is careless. The apartments were not designed to be partitioned/subdivided whatever you want to call it and if ever there was a fire and lives lost we could put it down to a stinking greedy bloodsucking landlord like Tishman Speyer for putting profits before human life. Not unlike the bloodsuckers who owned the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. Anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about just look up a little New York City history. Google Happy Land and Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. You'll get the picture and you'll see the what kind of landlord we have now. Godforsaken Bastard Fucks!
I just moved in to college, er, stuy-town two weeks ago into a 2-bedroom we were planning on converting into a 3-bedroom. Not only did we have to wait an extra week for a wall appointment (despite signing a lease 3 weeks in advance), but now we have no wall and one very disgruntled roommate who will not move in with the 1940s US Army style temporary "wall" Stuy-Town put up for us. And they only allow you to use one of two wall companies so if/when walls resume there will be a very long wait.
My last apartment was a one-bedroom in a high-rise luxury building and we had a wall put up no problem. It cost $200 less and the city never intervened, but perhaps that is because this particular building has sprinklers in the apartments (so as to avoid the whole windowless living room debacle). And, however, for what it's worth, the apartments are big so even after conversion the two or three bedrooms are by no means tiny (tiny is the bedroom you'll find in an average walk-up that is 9x7, not the average 10x11 or so you'll get at stuy-town).
Anyway, stuy town is an awful place not just because of luring in early 20s recent college grads with promise of, gasp, cleanliness (as opposed to the dirty walk-up we'd have to live in otherwise) but because it's all a big sham.
- Landscaping with cheap companies that fuck up
- 24 hours security booths without security ever in them
- Giving out keys that don't open the trash room door or laundry room door
- Laundry cash/key machines that are broken
- Having to pay to have the "concierge" on 20th and 1st receive your packages and then pay up to $20 for delivery or pay to rent a dolly
- Elevators that are supposed to have cameras, but they think wires hanging down where cameras should be are security
- Little brown bugs that crawl out from under the woodwork in new apartments
- Cement walls that have been painted over more than the oldest college dorm
- Water issues: not cold, not hot. Just lukewarm. Sometimes.
- No garbage cans along 14th street
Can't wait to move out. This place is a sham. But the rent is right even though it's a 20 minute walk to the subway from where I am.
I saw what life is like as Stuy Town when I visted the Tenement Museum on the LES. They accurately portrayed how poor little rich girls from Nebraska couldn't afford an apartment in New York City so they had to convert their one bedroom into a 15 room dorm to make ends meet. It all sounded so luxurious, I almost cried in my YooHoo.
The cosmetic changes that have been applied here in an effort to upgrade the apartments from decent middle-class housing to luxury market-rate apartments remind me of the old adage "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear." No matter how "luxurious" the cabinetry and appliances that are being installed, two people still cannot work in the Stuy Town kitchen. Open the oven and you're still going to bang your butt against something. Same thing with the bathroom...there's only one and the tub, sink, and toilet, while "luxurious," are still crowded together. It's like putting lipstick on a pig. You can try to dress it up, but a pig is still a pig.