"REPORTER: It is easy to see why one would want to hold on to an apartment here. Walking through Stuyvesant Town is like walking through a well manicured park. There's a fountain in the middle of a plaza and not far away toddlers have free reign of a green turf field. The place is serene and an escape from the bustle of the surrounding streets. But lately noise has been coming from the workers who ride around in trucks and golf carts:GARODNICK: These are changes which uh...well you can hear some of it now... uh have never really happened here because this has been the configuration...these buildings have been essentially the same for 60 years.
REPORTER: Garodnick is pointing to the glass rooms that are being constructed at the ground floor of several buildings. The sleek look contrasts with the public housing style of the complex.
GARODNICK: This is oval lounge right here. Let's see what it says is the amenities. It says let's see an elegant bar, pool table, and large flat screen tv and also space available to rent for private events and you have all these dashing young professionals standing by the bar in the image there....it's rather swanky
REPORTER: A study or "tranquil reading and meeting" room with free wi-fi is also under construction. So is a play room for kids and what's being billed as Oval Film which promises a private screening room with stadium seating. According to Garodnick, the price to use these amenities is a flat $250.00 plus a monthly fee of about 20 dollars. He says some of the long time tenants are skeptical about the change:
GARODNICK: In part because some of them can't afford to use these amenities and in part because they think it's making something out of this community which it was not really intended to be."
Continue reading Is Stuy Town a Money Loser For Tishman - [WNYC]
Jerry: Bloomy, hook me up
Bloomberg: What now?!
Jerry: We promised the oval sh*t would open Summer 2008
Bloomberg: But you have hundreds of pressure wall violations!
Jerry: Bloomy, hook me up, remember all those fundraising dinners? I need 4 CO's
Bloomberg: Fine. just hurry up and get rid of those stabilized tenants like you promised. by the way, you'll be really hungry next week. Expect domino's to deliver $500,000 worth of pizza.
Jerry: no eggplant topping yo
Much is being written about the money loss that Tish-Spy is experiencing, but almost nothing about what tenants are losing such as condition of the place, the digging, re-digging, planting, re-planting, mud, filth, the drilling, the noise, the incompetent administration, the lack of security etc. At least Garodnick begins to touch on this in this interview, but barely enough. How can we get Charles Bagli of the NY Times to do another article on Stuyvesant Town?
Garodnick is all talk, no action. He pays lip service to the tenants. I wish we still had Eva Moskowitz as our councilperson. She had real balls (figuratively speaking).
Was Dan Garodnick and that reporter walking through Stuyvesant Town or Peter Cooper Village? I walked through both tonite. PCV is very tranquil and well manicured. Stuyvesant Town not so much!
The MetLife/Tish Spy deal seems to be a very large-scale example of the greed and questionable lending practices that led to the subprime mortgage crisis. Housing prices don't decline. We can turn those apartments over to market rate quickly. Sound familiar? Oops, call Ben Bernanke! Maybe Fanny or Freddie can help.
I don't know which amenity is shown in the photo, but I can't help wonder what will happen when the toilet above overflows.
It's 1:52 a.m. I've been listening to garbage trucks beeping and
revving for almost an hour. How do we get this to stop?
M. Lee, it's 2:08 and I'm hearing what you're hearing.
We need to get hundreds or thousands of tenants to march into the Tishman Speyer Corporate Headquarters at 45 Rockefeller Plaza banging pots and pans.
Rob Speyer
President and Co-CEO
Rob Speyer was named President of Tishman Speyer in September 2007.
Since joining the firm in 1995 he has worked in senior positions in each of its major spheres of activity, including acquisitions, development and leasing. Most recently, he ran the company's day-to-day business in New York, and also served as Chair of its Management Committee, which oversees its activities globally.
Mr. Speyer was appointed by Mayor Bloomberg as Chair of the Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City, the not-for-profit corporation for the City of New York. He is a member of the Board of Visitors of Columbia College (emeritus), the Board of Trustees of the New York City Police Foundation, and the Executive Committee of the Board of Governors of the Real Estate Board of New York.
He graduated magna cum laude from Columbia College in 1992, and was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa Society.
THIS IS FROM THE TISH-SPY WEBSITE
DOES ANYONE KNOW WHAT HE MAJORED IN BESIDES HIS FATHER'S MONEY?
He majored in Chuzpah. Graduated with honors in fact.
It's 9:45 P.M. and the construction equipment on Avenue C is warming up again. Another sleepless night of Lux Living
Are you serious? Call 311. That is absolutely outrageous.
Journalism
Dear Beulah,
I have had so much construction going on in and outside my building in the past few weeks and am so sleep-deprived that I can't even see straight. I know it's a long-shot, but is there any way that Beulette has room in her trailer? I promise that I'll care for the Rotties.
Hey Wendy
Fanny or Freddie did help. Ha ha ha!