Sty Town, the Early Years

Here's an interesting note from their archives. In 1933 during the throes of the depression, homlessness was rampant and apartments sat empty.

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"In March and April of 1933, the NYC Tenement House Department hired 800 emergency workers including unemployed architects, engineers, and real estate professionals. Over the course of two months, the team surveyed an astounding 128,344 Class A Multiple Dwelling Units.

What they found was shocking. Click on the link above or the picture below and what you’ll find is that vacancy rates were an incredible 14.4 percent—thousands of apartments literally sat empty. Meanwhile, the ranks of the homeless on New York City ’s streets continued to grow, unable to afford the rent for these vacant units.

This study, found in our archives, was the first to lay the groundwork for the Pack Law which was passed as an amendment to the Multiple Dwelling Law (§248) to permit the conversion of Class A Multiple Dwellings to SRO units in 1939."
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So nobody could afford the apartments and the Pack Law allowed the creation of SRO's. SRO's where everyone has their own room, with the bathroom down the hall.

SOUND FAMILIAR ????

The concept of the bottom line, aka greed, has sadly replaced, undermined, and frankly trashed the words that Met Life Chairman Frederick Ecker stated so many years ago when he welcomed the returning veterans of WWII back to real homes. I am still a newcomer. I have lived here only for 30 years after marrying my husband who was one of the first boomer babies to call the Stuyvesant Town community home. When his family moved here, construction equipment still occupied the Oval, but my in-laws were very happy to have a real home in which to raise their family. We were lucky enough to get an apartment some 30 years ago when the list of those who wanted to live here was far longer than the list of vacant apartments. As a working mother, I chose to stay here rather than move to the suburbs so that I was only a cab ride away should my children need me during the day; it was an affordable place to live for a middle-class couple. I have a lot of memories, both good and bad, that I have collected living here over the years. One of my children died while we lived here. The other went to local schools and still lives with us after graduating from college, unable to afford to live solo in Manhattan.

I feel threatened every day that I am about to lose my real home of 30 years. I am terrified that my rent is very close to the $2,000 mark and that my governor who lives in a rent-stabilized apartment and my state legislative representatives have failed to index market rents against inflation since 1997. One day I received a letter from a Tish-Spy rep asking me if there’s anything I want to tell them about my primary residence, which has been right here since I moved in. Can a Golub notice be far behind? A few days later I read in the NY Post that our new landlords will be submetering the apartments so that we will now have to pay for electricity use that is currently part of the rent payment. I have a feeling that the submetering will not be a direct connect to ConEd but rather to the landlord’s agent who will charge outrageous administrative fees similar to those who currently hold the rent security escrow deposits. I have a feeling that the electricity charges will not even be in time to save us from the rent reaching the 1997 $2000 level.

I don’t have a lot of faith in my elected representatives at any level of government to help me out of this situation. Mayor Mike the Clueless is totally out of touch with people in my circumstances; he talks the talk of affordable housing, but he is certainly not doing anything about it. Sadly, we will likely have four more years of arrogance.

Although I have always subscribed to the motto Illegitimi non carborundum [don’t let the bastards wear you down], I am beginning to feel the pressure. It’s not just the rent increases or the electricity charges, it’s the feeling that I am truly an endangered species. Tish-Spy wants me out of here. Who knows what they will do next. That may sound paranoid, but even paranoid people have real enemies. When they cut me, I bleed.

The towers-in-a-park idea that had been championed by the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier have been replaced by Rob Speyers vision of towers-in-the-congo.

The quality of life in Stuyvesant Town has become like living in some sort of war zone. The drilling out on the 14th Street Loop starts at 7:30 am every day, six days a week; the dumpsters are emptied at 2:30 am almost every night/morning. Tishman Speyer has to be the landlord from hell; totally uncaring, unscrupulous, sadistic bastards. I don't know how they live with themselves. And they probably went to the synagogue on Yom Kippur to "atone" and show how good they are. They make me want to vomit.

To Anonymous: The 'Plan" has always been apparent and transparent: T-S wants to remove all rent stabilized tenants in ST by legal or illegal means, by bending, twisting or parsing the laws and regulations or by creating a hostile environment. Then, they will have 80 acres of prime East Side/waterfront real-estate to sell or develop as they please--the single largest Manhattan parcel in history. What was not part of the "Plan" is that most of us have no place else that we can go. Yes, if they cut us we bleed...we all bleed; and they will continue to cut us.

answering Anonymous

The T-S short term path to profitability has been to increase the number of market raters while cutting back on operating expenses. While TS may be lagging behind schedule with regards to market rate-conversions, they've been rather champion at cutting back services!

Frederick Ecker must be twisting like a Texas tornado in his grave! This is an atrocity on the grandest scale imagineable. I'm so surprised news cameras aren't parked both out in front of the building and/or Tish-Spey's offices. My heart bleeds for all who suffer in Sty-Town. When first I visited, it was an oasis in the midst of the hustle and bustle. Now it is an eyesore and a damn dirty disgrace is Tishman-Speyer. Hang in, people; they're going down the drain (probably one of their own!) Oh, wait; silly me - they don't work!!