A fuming Stuyvesant Town resident sent us these photos of the Avenue C loop which has been encased in a fence since March. The dangerous obstacle course now serves as a parking garage for construction equipment, a Port-o-Potty farm and an impromptu terrarium where 9,827,012 trees and plants will die before Stuy Town gardeners can get them into the ground. The glamour shots also shows how handicapped residents have no access to the sidewalks once they park their cars, that is, when the spots are not taken by contractors working in Stuyvesant Town. (The fence also prevents the fire department from having access to hydrants.) When the 20th Street Loop was recently repaved a tenant complained that two of the original four handicapped spots were removed. A Tishman Speyer representative at the management office blamed the contractors who repaved the road for the missing handicapped spots and hung up the phone.
Photos submitted by a Sty Spy.
They can plant 50 billion plants and trees and repave the loops, but they can't find the resources to dig a few puny holes and plant some signposts. Instead, they leave a fence blocking the way for 8 months !
Just another example of Tishman-Speyer's saying F-U to their tenants and their quality of life.
I have never lived in a place where the owners have no regard whatsoever for their tenants. I'm not renewing my lease.
I have read almost every entry on this site as well as the many, often brilliant and pithy, comments that follow each topic Luxie presents.
We are like the erudite, witty and ultimately submissive Jewry prior to the "next step" of the regime, if you will pardon a painful analogy. We groan, we gripe, we lift our hand in frustration, but we do nothing.
We're convinced that Tish-Spy has the mayor in their pocket, we believe that they are protected by some SS-force that renders us immobile and unable to rise up against their incapable management systems, we pay our rent and, like the denizens of Anatevka (another mixed analogy), we prepare to pack up and move on because we are powerless to do anything else.
I for one am just waiting to hear that there will be a rent boycott, or a march on Rock Center, or a tell-all in the Village Voice or the Daily News. I will gladly lend my voice and my support.
I hate to think that our witty and wry comments here substitute for the actions we should be taking against an unscrupulous and incompetent - not to say evil - landlord.
Is anyone else out there? Oy!!
They want to make StuyTown into a transient community by driving people like Andrew away. That way when the time comes for them to tear it down, there will only be a handful of college students, tourists, and upwardly [or downwardly] mobile yuppies left to kick out. They will probably find a regulation that says converting one- or two-bedroom into two- or three-bedroom units with flimsy walls and renting to multiple non-related tenants is against the law. If they can't find one, they will just have Mayor Mike the Marionette pass one.
Anyone watch the term limits bill signing ceremony this morning ? 4 HOURS of New Yorkers telling the Mayor TO HIS FACE how WRONG his usurping the will of the people was, and then he speaks for about a minute and says "well you know, this is New York, and you're going to get a lot of different opinions", and then SIGNS THE BILL.
Couldn't even wait a day or 2 to think about it.
What a sham of a government, and what a !@#$)%$#^%! of a mayor.
Well, I hear ya, fedup. There needs to be some sort of action, as this is just incredible ... and they appear to be pushing the envelope further with each passing day. What's next, no water at all? Or, simply an eminent domain action a la Robert Moses, condemning the place as a 'slum' and giving everyone 90 days to vacate?
What is the Tenant's Association's purpose during times like these?
Sal,
You are so right. My apt. and quality of life literally get worse every day. I am sitting in my apt. right now, absolutely freezing to death.
What is the answer? A rent strike?
The Tenants Association, however well intentioned, seems incapable of dealing with this horrible landlord because the issues involved have gone beyond their capabilities. Their major action plan seems to be providing an online forum for some tenant venting plus some fruitless public meetings every so often where they cozy up to the elected officials who represent the area and get their pictures into T&V. Those officials have proven useless in dealing with any middle-class housing and tenant issues--from Carolyn Baloney to Dan Garodnik. Dan tries hard but is pretty powerless. Perhaps it is time for new management in the Tenants Association that might want to take a far more active role in protesting what is happening in this neighbhorhood and indeed throughout the city. StuyTown is not alone is dealing with landlords who are trying to squeeze maximum profits out of their leveraged properties by preying on rent-stabilized tenants. Why can't the Tenants Association join up with these other groups and gain some power to fight back?
Fedup,
I contacted every news agency on the 'File a Complaint' page regarding the gas outage. The only one interested was NY1 and for all of the people pissed off, I could only find one person who was willing to speak to NY1, everyone else was either afraid to give their name or thought NY1 was below their news standards.
Maybe it is time to bypass the tenants association and have the tenants work together on their own? I don't know. But I share your frustration and agree with you 110%.
It's not just the harassment of rent stabilized tenants that is at issue here. It's all the mismanagement issues that are affecting the quality of life here. Indeed, we are over a barrel because we have come to believe that the mismanagement on the part of Tishman Speyer is intentional and geared toward the eventual disestablishment of Stuyvesant Town, it just can't be otherwise, could it? That is indeed a frightening prospect for most of us who have made lives here and have had no intention of leaving. Suddenly we are faced with a landlord who is screwing us and screwing up on a daily basis while we read in the newspapers that there might be an eventual foreclosure or receivership. What will happen to us becomes the question!
The Tenants' Association is not responsive and seems to be an institutionalized body that deals well with rent issues, but nothing else. Joining with other tenant groups is a good idea, but still doesn't address the level of anxiety and rage that is being generated by Tishman Speyer. It's as if we are living with an inadequate parent who is being threatened by authorities that his/her children will be placed in foster care if he/she doesn't shape up.
Will a rent strike help the situation or will increased publicity help the situation? I sure as hell don't know.
A rent strike looks good on paper, but be forewarned. There are very specific circumstances where a rent strike is legal, and you could easily lose your apartment if you engage in a hastily thought out illegal act.
Please don't think that this type of activism can be conducted independently. We would need to be under a substantial organizational and legal umbrella, not to mention that the circumstances here just don't warrant such an action. Yes, we're all pissed off and rightfully so, but rent strikes are usually legitimate when landlords withhold essential services for extended periods. That means no hot water, no heat (when it's REALLY cold outside), failure to correct DOB building violations and make necessary repairs to apartments. It's not legitimate for all the petty reasons TS has given us (tho I pray it could be).
Tenants here are best served by an extended publicity campaign. This website is a prime example of exposing TS's abuses of tenants to the outside world. A bunch of good illegal Golub notice cases that could be presented en-masse to the news media would also make TS look bad. Continue to pressure your elected representatives to make changes that help tenants. If the State Senate turns Democratic, everyone needs to hound your representatives continually with demands for change !
Fed Up: your analogy of us tenants being like the helpless jewry being shoved further and further down the road to the Ultimate Atrocity is made even more sad and bewildering because those who are doing this to us are jews. The Tishman Speyers and Michael Bloombergs of this world are the worst antisemites in existence. Just like the catholic priests who molested children are the worst anticatholics in existence. They give nothing to the world but pain and death because their unscrupulous and ruthless greed gobble up and suck the life out of everything and everyone who gets in their way.
The references to Jews which appear on this site are not appreciated. Comparing our condition as tenants to victims of the holocaust is ludicrous Tishmen Spyers' incompetence or venality as landlords has nothing to do with their religion. Keep your bigotry to yourself, please.
To "Enough Already": your point is well-taken and I apologize if my analogy gives offense. Like "Totally Pissed Off," I probably let my frustration get ahead of my sensitivities. None of this is a religious issue, of course, and bigotry has no place here, even when unintentional.
But the abuse by TS remains threatening, discomforting and totally without rhyme or reason. Hundreds of us are cold, or without regular services; money is squandered on dying bushes and so-called Amenities; threats of law suits proliferate on innocent tenants; old folks feel displaced.
By no means is the 14th Street loop the road to Dachau. But lack of sleep, unsupervised college kids, vomit in the elevators, broken washing machines, unaffordable rents, incompetent management, ineffective legislators, possible foreclosures, and a hundred other venial issues are taking their toll on most of us.
WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING SOON!
Well, this may sound obvious, but everyone, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE vote. If we don't get a Democratic majority in the Senate, we have no chance at all and will most likely be out of here by 2011.
Oy! All this back and forth is making me a little vehklempt. This isn't a religious issue, it's a stupidity / greed issue.
Dear Coffee Tawk,
Well, in order to put you in a better mood, I thought I'd tell you how to get some free coffee. Just vote, then go to Starbucks today and tell them that you did. You'll get a free regular coffee. Hopefully it will make you feel less vehklempt. Plus it will save you a few bucks that you can put toward your constantly rising rent.
NY1 is the only news channel that actually reports all the real nitty gritty news about New York - the kind of stuff that only New Yorkers are interested in and it's stuff we need to know. Their technical staff may be a bit amateurish (segments ran twice sometimes in the same 30 minutes time slot), too much looping and sound that constantly fluctuates, but the reporters are the best. A couple of the deskbound reporters (Kiernan and Dodley in particular) have serious speech problems - i.e., they are sometimes unintelligible - but the way the "boots on the ground" reporters go after stories and stick on them is excellent. No one should think that NY1 is below their news standards because, unless you don't give a damn about what goes on with this city, this is only station that will tell it like it is. Unfortunately, NY1 is only available on on the Time Warner system. Fios doesn't have it and too many people are getting Fios now - which is not nearly as good as it is cracked up to be. Just watch the rates soar after the "teaser" period is over!
RENT STRIKE!!! Rent is the only way they pay the bond interest. A prolonged rent strike will eat up their reserve fund faster which will cause the inept, and most likely in TS pocket, rating agency to downgrade.. .which will lead to higher borrowing costs for TS and the prospect of no bank or private equity concern to lend them more money. Also, CalPers and CalSters are major bondholders of the debt underlying the purchase of ST. They have strick fiduciary rules which may trigger them to pull out. RENT STRIKE
I am totally in favor of a rent strike, so long as it is organized legally. We are being treated worse than cattle by TishSpy and they should pay for their abuse.