Stuyvesant Town residents are having an increasingly difficult time finding parking within the 80-acre complex. For the past six months ongoing repaving projects have shut down several major roads, forcing residents to either find alternate parking on the city streets or pay a costly monthly fee for garage parking. Tenants who are lucky enough to find parking within Stuyvesant Town are realizing that they have to unfairly compete for the parking spots with Stuy Town employees and contractors who insist on parking their cars for days at a time.As it stands tenants can only park on the left hand side of the streets in Stuyvesant Town, the reason being is that the roads need to be accessible to emergency vehicles. The roads or "loops" as they are referred to, provide parking on a first come, first serve basis. But now residents are noticing an increasing trend in Stuy Town's staff and contractors squatting in the parking spots and only making them available to other employees.
"It took me 45 minutes to find parking the other day," a resident of 8 Stuyvesant Oval tells us. "As I was walking back from 5th Avenue, I overheard these two guys on the First Avenue Loop coordinating their work schedules. As the one employee was leaving the other employee immediately pulled into the spot...I was pissed!"Another tenant tells us how a Stuyvesant Town employee stole her parking spot for a supposed plumbing emergency only to be caught making a coffee run. "I was about to pull into a parking spot when I was cut off by an employee who stole my spot. He said he had to tend to a plumbing emergency at Oval Amenities... I didn't think twice because we all know they're full of sh*t over there. When I made my way around the loop again a minute later, I saw him walking back from Dunkin' Donuts stuffing his face with a cruller, spilling coffee on himself. Some emergency!"
Handicapped residents are also having a hard time parking their vehicles. After the 20th Street Loop was repaved, two of the four existing handicapped parking spots in front of 19 / 21 Stuyvesant Oval were removed. An angry tenant phoned management about the problem. They first told him he was mistaken but after further investigation management said the contractor was at fault for the missing parking spots and provided no further information.
When asked about the parking shortage on the complex, Tishman Speyer spokesman, Bud Perrone, suggests tenants "take a helicopter to work like everyone else."
The handicapped spots are a boondoggle. NYC law doesn't provide for handicapped "on street" parking yet StuyTown put up these signs with no basis in law, and then gives out tickets at random by their own employees who are authorized as "peace officers" and at that, usually ignore their own posted signage and let cars without proper permits park there anyhow.
Why we allow Tishman Speyer to write their own vehicle and traffic rules is beyond me.
I've been living in Stuy Town for almost 12 years and never thought about the Security Force vs. the NYPD until I read the following on Wikipedia.
"Some of the essential services that are available to residents 24 hours a day, 7 days a week include emergency electrical and plumbing maintenance, as well as a security force that is comprised primarily of N.Y.P.D. Special Patrolmen. While they are not permitted to carry pistols as with the N.Y.P.D., they have full arrest and summons powers and patrol the property in specialized vehicles to give an added sense of security presence on the property."
Is the above true and if so how do we distinguish between which to call in an emergency? I'd like some written clarification on this.
If a crime is being committed, you call 911.
If your neighbors make too much noise after hours, you call Security, unless they're unresponsive, then you call 911.
For violation of ST/PCV "rules" call Security.
Don't confuse ST/PCV Security guards with the NYPD. The Security guards have only one task, that's to protect the property of their employer. They do not represent your legal rights or interests.
That said, they used to help the quality of life, before they decided to ignore the all the rules violations so they wouldn't piss of anyone paying 4K a month.
You should see the loops around noontime on their respective street sweeping days. The cars back out, sweeper comes through, cars go back. It's better than synchronized swimming or the fish flocking like the salmon of Capistrano. After the sweeper leaves, the maintenance workers get out of their cars, and go back to work all while hogging the spaces from the tenants. It's a beautiful system for them. Someone with a good view from their apartment should capture the melodic vehicle dance and put it on youtube. I'll be sure to give it 5 stars.
this one, I don't see much of a problem with, except for that plumber who stole the spot from the resident. he should get a pay cut for that.
but on the whole, these spots are for the general public, and if stuy-town workers are there first, they should get the spots. residents do the same thing in stuy-town and all over manhattan/bk/qns, they hold the spot for their friend or keep their cars in the same spot for months just moving it during the cleaning periods. this is how nyc works, and i don't see what's wrong with it. The problem is there is a lack of parking, and a surplus of cars, there always was, there always will be, it is just a symptom of nyc within the last 20 years.
Thanks Murray for the clarification.
....and the right hand side of the streets in Stuyvesant Town are reserved for the personal vehicle parking spots of police department, fire department, corrections department and anyone else who can make a photocopy of one of the hundreds of thousands of parking placards...