October 2009 Archives

Via The New York Post

Real-estate giant Tishman Speyer Properties has put the kibosh on signing new leases at the massive Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village apartment complex while it figures out its next move after the state's highest court nixed the developer's plans to raise rents on its 11,000 apartments.

"We are not signing new leases at this time," a Tishman spokesman said in an e-mailed statement. "We are reviewing the ramifications of the court's decision."

Tishman, which is run by Jerry Speyer, put a halt on new leases shortly after the state Court of Appeals ruled that the company improperly raised rents on thousands of rent-stabilized units. The court's decision sets the stage for tenants to get back millions in overcharges.

 It's unclear when Tishman might resume accepting new tenants. In the meantime, Stuy Town's leasing office is taking a page from the complex's past and putting applicants' names on a list.

If the halt on lease signings lasts long enough, it could further erode Tishman's earnings on the property, which is already suffering from lower-than-expected occupancy rates and cut-rate rents thanks to the recession. A recent analysis pegged the complex's value at less than $2 billion.

In 2006 Speyer orchestrated a record $5.4 billion buyout of the property from MetLife with the goal of converting scores of rent-stabilized apartments to market-rate units.

However, those plans were scuttled by the economic slowdown and a tenant lawsuit that's at the heart of last week's court decision.

Now, it's widely expected that the complex's owners will run out of money by the end of the year and default on their loans.

Stuy Town tenants complain they're in the dark on whether to pay their November rents and at what rate.

Yesterday, Alexander Schmidt, the attorney who represented the tenants in the case, slammed Tishman for failing to sit down with him and his team to hammer out those very issues.

"This process just cannot move as fast as we want it to move when we have adversaries who are not cooperatively sitting down, or are unable to cooperatively sit down, to resolve this issue," Schmidt said in a call hosted by several New York legislators, including City Councilman Dan Garodnick.

Schmidt advised market-rate tenants to pay full rent for November until the lower rates that will result from the lawsuit can be hammered out. Schmidt promised that the difference will be put into an escrow account and eventually returned to tenants.

Garodnick said he and several other New York legislators, including Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan) and New York State Assembly member Brian Kavanagh, have taken their case to Tishman's creditors, including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two of the many entities that hold Stuy Town debt, hoping to have a say in how the complex's debt is restructured.

"They are quasi-government agencies and supported with considerable tax dollars that we have paid," Garodnick said of Fannie and Freddie.

Rent Interrupted [NY Post]

Via The Wall Street Journal

Fitch Ratings cut its ratings on 19 classes from three commercial mortgage-backed securities transactions on increased expected losses for the Peter Cooper Village/Stuyvesant Town loan, and said a default of the loan is likely.

Fitch said the downgrade was the result of a New York State Court of Appeals ruling last week against the loan sponsors, Tishman Speyer Properties LP and Blackrock Inc. (BLK), that is likely to stop conversion of rent-stabilized units to market-rate units and made the owners liable for repayments of rent overcharges for unit conversions now deemed illegal.

Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village comprises 56 multi-story buildings on 80 acres of the east side of Manhattan and includes 11,227 apartments. Tishman Speyer and Blackrock Realty acquired the property from MetLife Inc. (MET) in 2006 in a top-of-the-market deal valued at $5.4 billion.

The ratings agency said cash flow generated from the property is significantly less than what is needed to service the current outstanding debt, and debt-service reserves likely will cover only the November and December payments. It may downgrade the ratings again after a default.

Fitch lowered its estimated value of the property to $1.8 billion and said it was recognizing 50% of potential future losses because it expects a long workout of the loan after a default. The firm did not consider the historical overcharges the sponsors are now liable to repay because the amount is uncertain.

Fitch Cuts Ratings On Peter Cooper CMBS, Says Default Likely [WSJ]

With crime continuing to plague Stuyvesant Town, residents are already feeling unsafe in their buildings. But to invite criminals right on in seems outrageous!

A resident at 447 East 14th Street sent in this photo he took of the door to the building's maintenance area. The door is wide open and unattended. He writes:

"This door has been unlocked and wide open for two hours now. Anyone can walk in there. I called in to see if there was anyone around but there was no answer."

447 East 14th Street residents are all too familiar with criminal behavior. Earlier this year a tenant was mugged in the building on Memorial Day. The building is also a hot spot for bike thieves. Can't imagine why?

Get the Details on How the J-51 Decision Impacts All Tenants in a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Format available at the link below:

J-51 Final Ruling Impact - FAQ

Also, we will be distributing a copy of this afternoon's first every Tenant Association Legal Telebroadcast moderated by Council Member Dan Garodnick.  Get this and more J-51 updates at our website.

Thank you for your support.

###

PLEASE: WE NEED YOUR FINANCIAL SUPPORT

Your Tenants Association is run exclusively by volunteers.
Please help defray the cost of legal, communication, and meeting expenses. To save time and effort, donate online.  Or mail a check payable to:

ST/PCV TA
P.O. Box 1202
Stuyvesant Station, NY
10009 1202

Thanks.

Clips via Town & Village

Via Town & Village

Several Lux Living readers have forwarded us an e-mail sent out by Stuyvesant Town's management team about an hour ago with regards to their water suddenly being turned off. The e-mail's detail disorientated author forgot to include a few things, like, which buildings are affected and for how long the kitchens will be without water.

In all fairness, we give them a tip of the hat for both doing their job and packing up their desk at the same time.

From: <no-reply@stuytown.com>
Date: October 29, 2009 11:59:18 A EDT
Subject: Stuyvesant Town Property Alert

Property Alert
October 29 , 2009: Water Shutdown In Your Kitchen

Please be advised that the water in your kitchen will be temporarily shutdown due to necessary repairs.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

Thank You,
Stuyvesant Town Management

Update: 1:35PM

Management is saying the e-mail was sent by mistake and that there is no scheduled work being done on the water pipes today. Chaos as usual.

Like most of the buildings in Stuyvesant Town, residents of 4 Stuyvesant Oval have seen their lobby turn into a dilapidated mess under the management of the law un-abiding Tishman Speyer. This past week one of the porters decided to rip the building's registration information board off the wall and toss it into the recycling area. Thankfully the rest of the junky fliers, including a 'Summer Savings' promo, stayed in tact!

This morning the residents of 4 Stuy Oval had the joy of stepping over the remnants of last night's latest Stuy Town U bash in their lobby. Guess this explains why cockroaches have been seen pouring from the walls!

Via Village Voice

The unexamined world of Mike Bloomberg

One reason for the remarkably charmed life of Mike Bloomberg's administration as he sails toward re-election has been the waning of the city's news business. This is an odd blessing for a man who made his fortune as a media mogul. But just ask Rudy Giuliani, or David Dinkins, or Ed Koch, and they'll painfully explain.

When this city enjoyed four fat daily newspapers, editors clamored for strong, tough copy to fill them. Whenever scandal hit--make that even a mini-scandal--each one scrambled after the story. Local TV news, which gets its morning bearings from the dailies, gleefully joined the hunt as well. This happy combination produced many full-strength media pile-ons and visible shivers in City Hall.

There was a keen reminder of this changed world when a man named Raymond Harding put himself back in the news this month by pleading guilty to fraud at the state's pension fund. Back in 1997, Harding, the boss of something called the Liberal Party, was the city's top lobbyist, his law firm raking in millions from clients seeking favors from Giuliani's City Hall. These were easy for Harding to arrange since he had personally invented Giuliani as a political player.

It took a while for the dailies to catch on to this scheme, but when they did, the effect was viral: They became a four-man tag team, taking turns serving up tales of greed and insider trading. Giuliani was then at the top of his game and delighted in telling off reporters. But he knew disaster when he saw it. Claiming ignorance that his mentor was making a fortune off his administration, he publicly chided his aides and ordered his pal to lay low.

These days, the papers are onion-skin thin, and exposés are catch as catch can. Newsday, which once gave rival editors panic attacks every morning, doesn't even have a city edition anymore. When Dinkins was in office, the Long Island tabloid investigated even the type of fertilizer he used on the Gracie Mansion lawn. Nowadays, to fill their meager space, editors prefer colorful yarns to investigations. Until this month, one newspaper carried an entire column about empty rooms. We have the Web, with all of its many hardworking blogs, but most of these spend their energies keeping political scorecards with all the obsession of fantasy baseball addicts: Who's on first, and what coaches are in the dugout? The business of government and its many failings goes largely unexamined.

Poor Ed Koch: He was trashed as a miserable miser in multiple front-page stories because he had some 2,000 homeless families sleeping in shelters. Mike Bloomberg has five times as many, and no one even knows about it.

It's not that there's no investigative spadework being done. What's missing is critical mass. Last week, the Daily News's Juan González delivered some excellent fodder for a full-scale media assault in City Hall's Blue Room. He reported that the mayor's billion-dollar plan to relocate the city's emergency 911 call system has become a fiasco. Not only has Bloomberg's team blown its budget and deadlines, but it has also ignored the findings of its own consultant, which found the project was mired in mismanagement. Rather than dump its lead contractor, as the consultant recommended, Bloomberg's top aides insisted that the plan go ahead as is--defects be damned.

This type of project is supposed to be smack in the mayor's sweet spot since it involves computers and communications, the business that made him the city's richest man. It should also be one of those instances where he runs rings around old-school politicians because of his keen business acumen. Instead, here he is, tripped up by the same cost overruns and bureaucrats that plague ordinary humans. Another mayor in another time might have suffered many tough questions the day after such information surfaced. Instead, only the News chased its own story.

The same thing happened this summer, when the Voice reported a scandal at the city's NYC-TV operation, where the top executive was fired and his deputy arrested ("Inside the Mayor's Studio: NYC-TV's Secrets of New York," August 4). Unlike the perennially tainted buildings department that has plagued every mayor, the problems at NYC-TV came from Bloomberg's own supporters. He had repeatedly hailed the station as an example of his innovative approach to government. But instead of minding the store, his aides had traipsed around the world, making their own private movie. This tale also failed to trip the press alarm that scrambles the media into action.

The big story late last week was the stunning court ruling on the illegal Stuyvesant Town rent hikes. But you'd never know from the coverage that Bloomberg had praised the original deal cut by landlord Tishman-Speyer (headed by one of his strongest allies). Or that his top aides had scotched a plan to keep Stuy Town affordable. Or that a hefty chunk of the financing for the deal came from Merrill Lynch, the late investment firm that was a top Bloomberg LP client and which the mayor was barred from dealing with under a Conflicts of Interest Board ruling. That story--told here in detail by Wayne Barrett just last month--also died an orphan.

A Lux Living reader pointed out that both the Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village websites have removed all mentions of pricing in the wake of the Lease Freeze 2009.

Via The New York Observer

With all the great press coverage it's been getting lately, one might think people would be rushing in hordes to snap up apartments at Stuyvesant Town.

Not exactly.

The 11,200-apartment Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village complex has shut its doors to new renters, as the owners, a partnership led by Tishman Speyer, try to figure out what in the hell to do in the wake of last week's monstrous court decision.

"We are not signing new leases at this time," a Tishman Speyer spokesman, Bud Perrone, said in a statement. "We are reviewing the ramifications of the court's decision."

The state's top court ruled that the owners had improperly taken more than 4,000 apartments out of the rent-stabilization program, boosting up rents to market rates.

This opened a tremendous amount of questions, with answers offered for none of them: What to do with the apartments that have been deregulated and currently have market-rate tenants? Should the tenants get refunds? What about former tenants? Should vacant market-rate apartments have their rents lowered? Or just entered into rent stabilization at their current rates?

Now Tishman and its partners and lenders must wait until the legal system slowly chews and digests these questions before any clarity; but in the mean time, the firm has to figure out what to do with new rentals and existing tenants paying market rents.

That leads to a few bits of news that emerged around the Web, such as an advisory letter from the tenants association that suggests people keep paying their rents in full, and reports of the closed leasing office.

Want a New Lease at Stuy Town? Sit Tight [NY Observer]

It looks like the filthy living conditions and frat-like behavior isn't just for Stuy Town! A Peter Cooper Village resident sent in this photo after reading a recent Daily News article which compared Stuy Town to the movie Animal House. Along with the usual complaints - college kids having sex in the bushes, people taking dumps in the stairwells - the article relays one tenant's story of finding an entire pizza stuck to the ceiling of an elevator. Not wanting PCV to be left out, the tenant writes:

"Here's what the recycling area in my building looked like tonight. Yup, that's the greasy paper from the pizza box right on the floor. But this is nothing compared to what Sunday night always looks like...food garbage piled in the Refuse bin. A lot of tenants don't know about throwing regular garbage down the chute."

The tenant went on to say the porter in her building works his ass off all day long trying to keep the place respectable looking, but after hours - when this photo was taken - it all goes downhill. Clearly.

Update #4
 
Ask Your All J-51 Questions, Then Hear Answers this Thursday, 10/29 at 3pm

Learn more here:
 
Tenants Association Meeting on J-51 Telebroadcast

###

PLEASE: WE NEED YOUR FINANCIAL SUPPORT

Your Tenants Association is run exclusively by volunteers.

Please help defray the cost of legal, communication, and meeting expenses. To save time and effort, donate online.  Or mail a check payable to: ST/PCV TA, P.O. Box 1202, Stuyvesant Station, NY 10009 1202.  Thanks.

Stuy Town residents cringe when they hear the name Mac-Gray, and rightfully so! When Tishman Speyer began their crusade to destroy Stuyvesant Town in 2006, their first plan of attack was to gut the recently refurbished laundry facilities and replace the existing machines with energy "efficient" Mac-Gray washers and dryers. They thought this might be a way to save money since utilities are included in the tenants rents.

It's been well documented on Lux Living that the Mac-Gray machines frequently break down, overflow, and simply fall to pieces. Add to that the finger pointing between Mac-Gray and Tishman Speyer over who is responsible for servicing the machines, and you have a bunch angry tenants hanging their own clothes lines!

Today a tenant of 5 Stuyvesant Oval wrote Lux Living to report on the 4 broken machines in the building. Says the tenant:

"I spoke to Mac-Gray representative, Chris Langill, on Saturday, October 24th,  to remind her that on Wednesday, October 21st, we called to report that 4 of the 5 washing machines in 5 Stuyvesant Oval were still out of service.  As of today at 9AM, 4 of the 5 machines are still out of service."

What an attention to detail you have Mac-Gray! And you wonder why residents have been known to violently flip the machines over, kicking and spitting on them. On the plus side, now that residents are relieved from laundry duty, they can follow Mac-Gray on Twitter with their free time!

Tishman Speyer's courtroom ass-kicking seems to be having an immediate effect on the Stuyvesant Town leasing office. Lux Living received several e-mails tonight suggesting that Stuyvesant Town is not doing any new business through leasing office on First Avenue until further notice.

A reputable source close to the Tenants Association tells Lux Living the Stuy Town Leasing Office is "under a 'lease freeze' and no business will be conducted until further notice."

The source says this information is based on three phone calls to the Tenant Association's message center, several e-mails, and interaction with a market rate tenant coming up on a lease renewal.

A separate e-mail was sent to Lux Living by a potential renter who recently answered an ad on Craig's List titled "$2450 / 1br - 755 SQFT TRUE ONE OF A KIND CLASSIC SUNNY APT (East Village)" which has since been removed.

The potential renter got an automated reply from Annette Beatrice who has yet to respond:

"On xxxxx, Beatrice, Annette <ABeatric@TishmanSpeyer.com> wrote:

From: Beatrice, Annette <ABeatric@TishmanSpeyer.com>
Subject: Out of Office: $2450 / 1br - 755 SQFT TRUE ONE OF A KIND CLASSIC SUNNY APT (East Village)
To: "xxxx" <xxxxx>
Date: xxxxx, October xx, 2009

Hi, I am currently out of the office. I will get back to you as soon as possible. If you need immediate assistance, please call the main Leasing Office at 212-253-3610. Thank you."

Stuy Town stopped placing it's usual suspicious Gramercy Park / East Village ads on Craig's List October 20th, 2009.

UPDATE: Tuesday, 7:40am

A third source confirms that if you want a lease at Stuyvesant Town, you have to put your name a waiting list, just like the good 'ol days.

We Won So What is Next?

First, everyone needs to understand that we are in uncharted territory right now.  "Instant Information" is not possible and is possibly detrimental as illustrated by the final point in New York Times 'J-51 Q and A', published the day after the decison.  (The piece incorrectly suggests tenants file a Rent Overcharge Application with DHCR.)
 
Right now, Mr. Schmidt, your Tenants Association and the office of Dan Garodnick are working together to formulate a Frequently Asked Questions document to answer many of the questions you may have.  This document will be posted on our website and distributed through this email list as soon as possible.
 
So please sit tight and give us TIME to create a quality and accurate communication on the next steps.
 
In the meantime, here is some immediate advice from the attorney for the case, Mr. Schmidt:

Via the New York Daily News

The middle-class oasis in the pricey heart of Manhattan - is starting to look like the raunchy set of "Animal House," longtime residents say.

Desperate to survive the collapsed housing market, the complex's new owners have wrought a sea change by jamming in hundreds of young tenants alongside Stuy Town veterans.

The arrival of students, singles and hipsters with wild parties and frat-house antics has rocked the world of older tenants.

"They've been partying loudly at ungodly hours, relieving themselves in hallways, kicking over the garbage cans and waking up whole buildings at 4 a.m.," complained Al Doyle, head of the tenants association and a resident since 1952.

A.J. Miller, a small-business owner who has lived in the complex for 30 years, said young people "are puking and dogs are pooping in stairwells and elevators, and it's suddenly become a family-unfriendly place to live."

For more than 60 years, Stuy Town provided affordable homes for nurses, teachers and firefighters, while Peter Cooper Village, its slightly more upscale sister, offered a haven for judges and accountants.

That stability began to erode in November 2006, when Tishman Speyer and partner BlackRock paid $5.4 billion to buy the 11,000-unit complex from Metropolitan Life, which built it in the 1940s for returning G.I.s.

The purchase of the 80-acre, 110-building complex, which stretches from First Ave. to the East River and 14th to 23rd Sts., was the largest residential real estate deal in U.S. history.

Unfortunately for Tishman, which shouldered a $4.4 billion debt load, it happened at the top of the market. Six months later, the boom was over.

The credit and real estate markets have collapsed and the complex - now worth just $2.1 billion - faces imminent default on its loans.

The air of uncertainty intensified this week when the state's top court ruled in favor of tenants in Stuy Town and Peter Cooper in a landmark rent battle with Tishman.

The Court of Appeals declared Tishman couldn't collect a special tax break while hiking certain rents, a ruling that could affect 350,000 tenants across the city - and may cost Tishman, BlackRock and MetLife some $200 million.

When it first arrived, Tishman pledged "no radical changes," but soon walls popped up, splitting apartments to jam hundreds of younger people into market-rate dwellings.

Gone were the waiting lists that kept would-be tenants in limbo for 16 years. The new owners offered eye-catching inducements to bring people in fast, such as:

Via The New York Post

Stuy-town ruling hits rents citywide

A huge chunk of the city's rental-apartment industry is in chaos this weekend as owners and tenants grope with the Court of Appeals ruling that luxury rent increases at Stuyvesant Town were illegal.

"Chaos is the perfect word," said Jeffrey Turkel, partner in Rosenberg & Estes, who had filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Rent Stabilization Association, an owners' group.

As renters and owners alike burned up the phone lines with their lawyers, questions swirled concerning:

* What rents tenants would be charged on Nov. 1. Would landlords collect the higher market-rate rents and put some in escrow or charge a lower rent with some modification to come?

 * Whether each tenant affected by the court ruling -- perhaps as many as 10,000 -- has to file their own rent refund application.

* How the State's Division of Housing and Community Renewal would deal with the expected application deluge.

* If each rent-refund application, with its unique time period and refund amount, would be fought for years in court by landlords

* How much City Hall stood to lose in tax collections, which are based, in part, on the profits of building owners.

As far as how much rent to collect, some lawyers are advising owners to collect the full amount and place possibly disputed amounts into escrow. 

Despite all the wailing and celebrating by opposing parties, it may be years before landlords and tenants in New York City know the full impact of a decision by the state's highest court on Thursday that the owners of two major residential complexes improperly charged market-rate rents for thousands of apartments.

The New York Court of Appeals ruled that the owners of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, adjoining complexes in Manhattan with 11,227 apartments, improperly raised rents and deregulated 4,400 apartments while receiving special tax breaks from the city.

Landlords immediately criticized the decision, saying its impact would throw thousands of building owners who did the same thing into financial distress. At the same time, tenants looked forward to rent rebates going back years and damages worth tens of thousands of dollars.

But lawyers on both sides of the issue said on Friday that it could take years of litigation to determine if the owners of Stuyvesant Town and other landlords must repay tenants for years of rent overcharges, or simply adhere to the court's decision from now on. There could also be lawsuits over whether the owners, a partnership of Tishman Speyer Properties and BlackRock Realty, owe triple damages (the ruling did not specify a remedy).

Further, there could be dozens of lawsuits brought by tenants of other buildings claiming that their landlords also improperly raised rents and deregulated apartments while getting tax breaks for major renovations.

Via The New York Times

When the New York State Court of Appeals overturned some rent rules in place for more than nine years on Thursday, the decision opened a window for many market-rate New York City tenants, including some paying some of the highest rents in the country, to roll back rents and get the protections of the state government's rent regulation system. Here are some questions and answers about the decision.

Q. What did the ruling say?

A. Landlords in rent-regulated buildings who received property tax abatements acted improperly when they deregulated apartments under state laws that allow for deregulation when the legal regulated rents rose above $2,000, according to the court decision. In 2000, the state's Division of Housing and Community Renewal found that these owners could deregulate apartments. The case was brought by tenants at the Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town complexes in Manhattan

Perhaps Jerry Speyer's spawn should have stuck with the newspaper biz. Rob Speyer, the ex New York Daily News reporter, is proving to be a huge liability for the once prestigious Tishman Speyer. It seems every project the young Speyer is involved with is turning out to be a huge embarrassment for the real estate moguls. First their was the Hudson Yards, then Stuyvesant Town, and now the new Yankee Stadium.

The New York Times reports today that the ramps in the new Yankee Stadium are already cracking!

"The concrete pedestrian ramps at the brand-new $1.2 billion city-subsidized Yankee Stadium have been troubled by cracks, and the team is seeking to determine whether the problems were caused by the installation, the design, the concrete or other factors, according to several people briefed on the problems.

The ramps were built by a company accused of having links to the mob, and the concrete mix was designed and tested by a company under indictment on charges that it failed to perform some tests and falsified the results of others. But it is unclear whether work performed by either firm contributed to the deteriorating conditions of the ramps."

Shoddy construction? Mafia ties? What a class act! Even Oval Bada-Bing has gone under. The new Yankee Stadium was in the news this past April when it was discovered the angle of the seats is making everyone a home run hitter! It's no surprise there's no mention of Rob's miserable track record on the Tishman Speyer blog.


Cracks Emerge in Ramps at New Yankee Stadium [NY Times]

Stuy Town residents opening their rent bills today are once again graced with junk mail from Tishman Speyer. Tish-Spey is hoping you'll refer a friend, soon to be known as an enemy, to the financial disaster they call Stuyvesant Town. After all, who wouldn't want to live on an 80 acre property with minimal security and even less building services. Quite the ideal living situation!

On the plus side, losing your apartment and being forced to live in a car with your frenemy sounds like the perfect idea for a new reality show. Just ask Jerry and Steve-O!

Via Crain's New York

Appeals court ruling against landlord Tishman Speyer and its partners will affect far fewer units, and property owners than originally feared; impact outside Manhattan tiny

Last week's appeals court ruling that many New York landlords had long predicted would prove cataclysmic now looks to be nothing of the sort. While some landlords will undoubtedly suffer mightily--and some tenants benefit hugely--for the overwhelming majority, life will go on as before.

"It's certainly bad for [some], but it's not a decision that will affect tens of thousands of apartments," said Steven Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York. "There may be tens of thousands of people who claim they are owed something, but you can't stop what people will claim."

The court's decision that the owners of Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village had illegally deregulated rents on about 4,000 apartments in buildings that were receiving tax breaks is a legal milestone. But the key question is just how many more deregulated units will be affected. Estimates range from a mere 5,000 to 75,000.

Two things are already clear. Tishman Speyer and its partners, plus MetLife--the current and former owners of the complex, respectively--will be on the hook for a total of tens of millions of dollars worth of rent rebates. Meanwhile, lawyers across the city will spend years sorting out such issues as who is due a rent rebate.

Via Bloomberg

Tishman Speyer Office Park in L.A. Faces Foreclosure

 Oct. 23 (Bloomberg) -- A Tishman Speyer Properties LP office park in California where reclusive aviator Howard Hughes once worked is the subject of a foreclosure lawsuit saying the owners failed to repay $154 million of debt due in July.

Tishman Speyer and Walton Street Capital LLC bought the Campus at Playa Vista at the top of the U.S. real estate boom in 2007. KeyBank National Association sued to foreclose against limited partnerships controlling the Los Angeles property, according to an Oct. 20 complaint. The site is connected to a 1,000-acre residential and retail development, according to Tishman Speyer's Web site.

Commercial property values in the U.S. have plunged since 2007 as employers shed jobs and the recession reduced demand for offices, retail space and rental apartments. The Moody's/REAL Commercial Property Price Indices fell 3 percent in August from July, bringing the decline to almost 41 percent since October 2007, Moody's Investors Service said Oct. 19.

The California lawsuit comes the same week Tishman Speyer and partners including BlackRock Realty LP moved closer to defaulting on $3 billion in debt on Manhattan's largest apartment complex. A New York court ruled yesterday that the company had illegally raised rents on thousands of apartments in the Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village complex.

Via Wall Street Journal



While NYC Renters Rejoice, More Pain for Tishman and Co.

While the residents of Stuyvesant Town were celebrating the prospect of rent rebates and reductions today, Tishman Speyer and the investors that bought the sprawling Manhattan apartment complex reeled.

New York state's top court ruled on Thursday that the owners of Stuy Town wrongfully raised rents on some 4,000 apartments, a decision that would exacerbate the financial woes for the project's owners and lenders and is sending shivers up the spines of the city's landlords.

The New York Court of Appeals sided with a lower court's ruling on a tenants' lawsuit that claimed that the owners of the 80-acre developments known as Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town improperly converted rent-regulated units in the complex, which was built in the 1940s with city assistance, while receiving tax breaks from the city.

Deutsche Bank analysts estimate that the Peter Cooper-Stuyvesant complex is worth only $1.89 billion now, down a stunning 65% from $5.4 billion that the group led by Tishman and a unit of BlackRock Inc. paid owner MetLife in 2006. By that measure, all the equity investors in the deal -  from the Church of England to the California Public Employees' Retirement System -- and many of the lenders, including Government of Singapore Investment Corp., or GIC, and insurer Hartford Financial Services Group, are in danger of seeing their investments wiped out.

Yesterday, a Stuy Town tenant received a letter from the complex's accounting department letting him know he should expect a $328.10 credit on his November rent bill for an elevator MCI he had been billed for. The letter read:

"Pending a decision by the Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR), we are temporarily removing the monthly elevator retroactive charge of $65.62 from your account and have issued a credit in the amount of $328.10 for the period of June 2009 through October 2009, which will be applied towards your November rent statement."

The refund comes after tenants were slammed with three MCI's in a row this past summer for road resurfacing, new common area doors, and water tanks.

Via New York Post

Judge rules Stuy Town tenants illegally charged

Tishman Speyer Properties was dealt a huge setback yesterday after the state's highest court ruled that the real estate giant improperly raised rents on thousands of rent-stabilized apartments at the sprawling Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village apartment complex on Manhattan's East Side.

The stunning 4-2 decision by the state Court of Appeals, which was cheered by renters and jeered by landlords, could result in millions of dollars in damages and rent refunds to tenants who've seen their rents skyrocket as landlords sought to bring rents closer to market rates.

The ruling could also push some landlords, including Tishman, to walk away from properties whose values have sunk in the wake of the uncertainty surrounding the rent-hike issue.

For Tishman boss Jerry Speyer, the ruling is especially damaging, as the complex has lost half its value since he orchestrated a record $5.4 billion purchase of the 80,000-unit property in 2006 using scores of investors, including the Church of England, pension-fund giant Calpers and money-manager BlackRock. Just yesterday, an estimate pegged the complex's worth at $1.98 billion.

Via New York Post

Tishman Speyer can blame itself for getting creamed by the state Court of Appeals yesterday. Not because it thought it was violating the law -- far from it, based on its common-sense reading of the rule governing decontrol of rent-stabilized apartments.

The problem was that the language is so ambiguous it can reasonably be interpreted as allowing decontrol at Stuyvesant Town -- or not.

Although Tishman Speyer acted on the good faith assumption that it was OK to raise rents beyond rent-stabilized limits, the rule left wiggle room to find otherwise.

 Tishman gambled its $5.4 billion investment on being able to decontrol units where the rent reached $2,000 a month and household income topped $175,000 -- the legal thresholds permitting an owner to charge market-rate rents.

But New York courts are notoriously pro-tenant. The law bars deregulating units "which became or become subject to [stabilization] by virtue of receiving tax benefits" under the city's J-51 program.

That could mean deregulation is not disallowed at Stuy Town because it became rent-stabilized 18 years before previous owner MetLife first received J-51 benefits. At least that's how Tishman interpreted it. So did the city's Dept. of Housing and Community Renewal and a lower court.

But it could also be read as meaning that Stuy Town is locked into stabilization permanently simply because it enjoys the tax breaks.

With so much hanging on the meaning of "by virtue of," Jerry and Rob Speyer nonetheless rolled the dice.

Their overconfidence came on top of overpaying.

Now the court has made things far worse for them and for the entire decontrol cause, which too briefly offered a way out of the system's socialist-style deathlock on the rental housing scene.

Why Jerry's $5.4B Gamble Failed [NY Post]

Tenants and landlords spent much of Thursday struggling to figure out what the state high court's ruling on the future of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village meant for all types of New Yorkers.

Real estate moguls feared the news would cripple their industry, and tenants worried about their rents.

Despite the lack of clarity, the ruling by the New York Court of Appeals had an immediate chilling effect on real estate in New York: Landlords questioned whether they could raise rents, and some even went so far as to cancel plans to buy more apartments in buildings with tax subsidies.

"It's terrible for the industry," said Ed Kalikow, whose family owns 2,000 apartments in the city. He did not know how many of those units would be affected. "A lot of people bought property with the thought that they would get the rents up. People made decisions on that. Banks made loans. This decision is another nail in the coffin."

While tenant groups who had spent the last several years fighting the owners of Stuyvesant Town welcomed the news, they also recognized that the ruling may complicate and extend how long it takes for current or past tenants to receive rent rebates. They also feared that conditions would deteriorate as owners deferred maintenance and repairs.

Today, 4,352 of the 11,227 apartments at the two complexes have rents at market rate, up from 3,189 in late 2006.

The decision complicates the financial problems of landlords like Tishman Speyer Properties at Stuyvesant Town and Stellar Management at Riverton Houses in Harlem, which paid record prices for residential properties during the housing boom.

And what financial apocalypse would be complete without a swarm? Stuyvesant Town residents at 645 East 14th Street are plagued by a new infestation of mosquitoes, and thanks to possible water damage in the building, they better get used to them!

A fuming tenants writes, "645 T level vestibule is infested with Mosquitoes. I complain, they clean, then 'squitoes come back!  Always musty smelling, obviously a water/mold problem somewhere in the vestibule where the mosquitoes are breeding."

Stuyvesant Town had a major problem with mosquitoes this year thanks to an unusually rainy summer coupled with excessive use of sprinklers on the property. At one point during the summer the Oval had been reduced to a muddy, malaria-friendly swamp where some residents allegedly acquired flu-like symptoms.

Via Town & Village


Click image to elnarge

Via Town & Village

PRESS CONFERENCE TODAY
2:15 PM at E 16TH ST and FIRST AVE

J51 Victory for Tenants

As to be expected with this stunning win, many elected representatives will be converging at a press conference hosted by Council Member Dan Garodnick and your Tenants Association to discuss the impact on tenants of this mornings decision by the NYS Court of Appeals.

PLEASE ATTEND.  HEAR MORE DETAILS ABOUT TODAY'S BIG WIN.   A STRONG PRESENCE BY MARKET RATE AND RENT STABILIZED TENANTS IS IMPORTANT

Via The New York Times

The Court of Appeals dealt a financial blow on Thursday morning to the already beleaguered owners of the sprawling Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village complexes in Manhattan when it ruled that they improperly began charging market rents on thousands of apartments.

The ruling by the state's highest court may mean that the current owner, a partnership of Tishman Speyer Properties and BlackRock Realty, and the former owner, Metropolitan Life, may have to pay an estimated $200 million in rent overcharges and damages to tenants of some 4,000 apartments.

The court, in a majority ruling (two of the six judges dissented), said the owners improperly raised rents beyond certain set levels at the complexes while receiving tax breaks from the city for major renovations.

The decision could also affect landlords of as many as 80,000 apartments across the city who also may have improperly raised rents and deregulated apartments while receiving special tax breaks.

"I was leaving 21 Stuyvesant oval @ ~ 6 pm to walk my dog (if not for my dog I would of not caught this guy in the act). While leaving the building I observed a man standing around 10 feet away from the front door. He was looking all around and over his shoulder.   Something about this guy did not look right.

I continued past him for another 15, 20 feet. Turned around to look at him. He then walked towards a bike that was changed up near the front door (T level 21 Stuyvesant Oval). I watched pull out a big pair of yellow handled bolt cutters from his pants leg.  He proceeded to cut the chain, all the while I was shouting for him to stop. He cut the chain put the bolt cutters down his pants leg, jumped on the bike and speed past me. He proceeded on the 20th St loop towards 20th St.

At that point I saw two uniformed Aux. cops walking on the loop I yelled to them to "stop that guy on the bike, he just sole the bike" The two Aux cops gave chase on foot. I called security on my cell phone. The two Aux cops were joined by NYC police and captured the guy on 20th Street.

I was asked by the police to identify the thief , which I did. The thief was caught with the bike and the bolt cutters."

Stuyvesant Town, the punchline to most real estate jokes, continues to have a problem with dumping. No, not the dogs. It's transient, overnight guests! A Sty Spy snapped photos of this mountain sized mess earlier today left sitting outside a Stuy Town building. Bed bugs, eviction, death, it's anyone's guess as to why someone would throw out their entire apartment. On the plus side, at least it's not from IKEA.

 

Stuyvesant town girl 9th floor!!!! - m4w (East Village) [Craig's List]

Via WNYC

NEW YORK, NY October 19, 2009 --Tenants at Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village say landlord Tishman Speyer is conducting massive complex-wide apartment inspections and then threatening them with possible evictions.

Letters to tenants say apartment inspectors will be looking for fire and safety code violations, such as temporary walls that could be blocking fire exits. John Marsh, vice president of the tenants association, says inspectors are intimidating residents and giving them too little time to fix problems. "This owner, while doing these inspections, has issued preliminary eviction notices for violations of the fire and sanitary codes. For an older person with no one to help them, these letters are quite frightening," Marsh says.

Tishman Speyer has been struggling financially and is close to defaulting on its loan, mostly because its been unable to turn rent stabilized apartments into market rate apartments fast enough.

Rent stabilized tenants see these inspections as an excuse to remove them from their apartments.

Tishman Speyer says it takes code violations seriously, which is why it's conducting the inspections. The landlord says it will work with residents to address any problems.

Right now 61% out of the roughly 11,000 apartments at the large complex remain rent-stabilized.

Stuy Town Tenant Fear Inspections [WNYC]

Related:
Knock, Knock, Stuy Town! It's Tishman Speyer Looking for Subdivisions [NY Observer]

California tenants demand reform

CalPERS will lose hundreds of millions of dollars in predatory real estate investment schemes according to recent reports in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the San Jose Mercury News, and other publications.  What has not been adequately reported is that these schemes are classic examples of what housing advocates call "predatory equity," over leveraged investments that rely on the displacement of tenants from rent-regulated housing in order to turn profits.

CalPERS has effectively invested (and lost) the retirement funds of working people in projects that were designed to displace working people from their homes.

Tenants Together, California's statewide organization for renters' rights, is calling on CalPERS to adopt predator-free real estate investment policies that will prevent it from ever again committing funds to these types of schemes that have displaced tenants and have proven to be such financial disasters.  Tenants Together is also demanding a full investigation into the circumstances of CalPERS investments in predatory equity schemes to determine what CalPERS knew about these investments at the outset.

"CalPERS must never again make investments into schemes that are so devastating to local communities and to the retirement accounts of working people," said Dean Preston, Executive Director of Tenants Together.  "We need to know exactly how this happened so we make sure it never happens again."

The Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village Tenants Association wants to take another shot at buying the massive apartment complex now that it's reportedly just months away from default.

"If we had the opportunity, I think we would," said association president Alvin Doyle. "We'd like to try to control our community, if we can."

It's unclear whether a bid for the 80-acre property on Manhattan's East Side would be considered by Tishman Speyer Properties. The complex is not officially for sale.

But foreclosure could change all that.

The complex was bought by Tishman in 2006 for $5.4 billion. The tenants association had offered $4.5 billion. And now it's estimated to be worth only $2.1 billion.

A bid could be a welcome offer as Tishman Speyer Properties struggles to pay for the 11,250-unit complex and waits for a court decision that could force them to reduce market-rate rents on 40% of the units back to rent-stabilized prices.

A spokesman for Tishman declined to comment.

City Council member Dan Garodnick, who represents the district, said he's not surprised that the complex is in trouble. "We knew that their assumptions were way off the mark," he said. "As we watch them slowly slip into that direction [of foreclosure], we want to make sure that tenants' concerns are front and center in any restructuring."

Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village Tenants Association seeks second chance to buy building complex [NY Daily News]

Via Business Insider

This one's been in trouble for awhile, and now WSJ is reporting that the epic NYC apartment complex Stuyvesant Town is just months away from implosion.

See what it's like to live there >

The 56-building, 11,000 unit complex was acquired at the peak of the bubble for $5.4 billion by Tishman Speyer and BlackRock, with investors ranging from CALPERS (naturally) to the Church of England (not as obvious).

Here's the deal:

    * The property is now thought to be worth just $2.1 billion.
    * The buyers originally projected income would triple to $336 million in 2011, but right now it's only at $139 million.
    * They've got just $33 million cash on hand from its interest reserves to cover its debt, and a burn rate of $16 million.

So basically: they're screwed.

Meanwhile, this sad state of affairs explains why StuyTown is so eager to advertise on subways and magazines, in a desperate bid to gain tenants? Perhaps you want to help them out and live in converted public housing (which is what it is).

Commercial Real Estate Watch: Stuyvesant Town Set To Implode [Business Insider]

Related Stories:
NYC housing complex on verge of loan default: report [Reuters]
The Peter Cooper - Stuyvesant Town Blunder Soon To Be A Bankruptcy? [Real Estate Bloggers]

Via Wall Street Journal

One of the biggest, most high-profile deals of the commercial real-estate boom is in danger of imminent default, say people familiar with the matter, signaling the beginning of what is expected to be a wave of commercial-property failures.

The sprawling Manhattan apartment complex known as Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town -- acquired for $5.4 billion in 2006 by a venture of Tishman Speyer Properties and a unit of BlackRock Inc. -- is running out of cash. As of the end of September, it had $33.7 million left of the $400 million in interest reserves set up to service its debt, according to the people familiar with the matter. At its current burn rate of about $16 million per month, the reserve could be depleted before the end of the year, the people said. Others have said the venture could avoid default until February.

The spokesman for Tishman Speyer declined to comment on behalf of the partnership.

The ownership, which includes a roster of high-profile investors from the Church of England to the California Public Employees' Retirement System, has no current plans to inject more capital into the venture, according to the people. Lenders who financed the deal first projected the complex's net operating income would triple to $336 million in 2011 from $112 million in 2006, according to Deutsche Bank AG. But net income is projected to be $139 million this year, according to Realpoint LLC, a credit-rating agency.

Investors who bought into the deal were confident that real-estate manager Tishman Speyer would be able to greatly boost profits by raising rents in Manhattan's sizzling apartment market. But today, the 56-building, 11,000-apartment property is suffering from a slowing New York economy, a lawsuit that has hindered the owner's ability to convert rent-controlled units to market rentals, and the debt load.

Via ApartmentRatings.com

"Cheated by landlord during residence and after
From: -Anonymous-
Date posted: 10/13/2009
Years at this apartment: 2007 - 2009

The grounds are the only benefit of living in Peter Cooper Village or Stuy Town.

We were often harassed by neighbors who didn't like the sound of footsteps over them. It took management 4 full months and threat of legal action and getting NYC police involved to talk to the neighbors and ask them to leave us be.

We paid our rent on the same day of every month automatically through our bank. They often charged us late fees even though our bank verified that the check was received well before the due date. It would take several emails, phone calls and written proof from the bank for management to reverse the charges.

When moving out we were charged $700 in cleaning fees even though the apartment was well cleaned. They claim a 3 year old sink needed replacing when it didn't. I didn't take pictures of the clean place, and I fully regret that. Now we have to work with the legal department to get the remainder of our security back.

I would not recommend this complex to anyone."

Cheated by landlord during residence and after [ApartmentRatings.com]

Via NPR

" Anywhere from 70,000 to 100,000 New York City apartment units are in foreclosure or at risk of it right now, including both small buildings and mega-complexes like Riverton Houses in Harlem, which went into default a year ago.

The foreclosures are a hangover from the real estate boom, when developers paid hefty sums for New York real estate. Because the city has been gradually phasing out its rent subsidy laws, more and more landlords were able to charge market rents for their apartments, and developers saw dollar signs.

"The plan was to turn them into luxury rentals and condos," says Emily Youssouf, former head of the New York Housing Development Corporation. "There were hardly any neighborhoods where you couldn't see gentrification happening, and a lot of neighborhoods that used to be terrible weren't anymore, because they were moving up, and everything was moving, moving ahead."

In the heady days of the credit boom, developers hoping to cash in had no trouble persuading banks and other lenders to give them money to acquire the buildings. But rent-regulated tenants have proven harder to dislodge than many expected, and in the aftermath of the real estate crash, rent projections turned out to be wildly overblown.

"What you see embedded in the underwriting of the loans is an expectation that cash flow will grow significantly, and where we find ourselves now is in a situation where, rather than that being the case, the cash flows have deteriorated," says Sam Chandan, president and chief economist at Real Estate Econometrics, a forecasting firm.

Today, many developers are saddled with apartment buildings that bring in far less than they need to pay off the enormous loans they took out. Perhaps the most prominent examples are Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village in Manhattan, two sprawling sister complexes built by Metropolitan Life after World War II and purchased by private equity firms in 2006 for $5.4 billion, in what was called the largest real estate deal in U.S. history.

In most cases, developers are holding on, trying to refinance their loans while they wait for the market to turn around. For the most part, they have continued to maintain the buildings, and cases of outright abandonment, like the Ocelot Group, have been few, Youssouf says.

But time is running out, leaving the future of many buildings in jeopardy."

Some Tenants Pay The Price For Mortgage Excesses [NPR[

Via Bloomberg.com

U.S. apartment values, down about 35 percent from their peak, will probably fall further as rising unemployment cuts demand for rentals, said Ronald Zuzack, managing director of BlackRock Inc.'s real-estate unit.

"I think the valuations could go down another 10 percent," Zuzack, of BlackRock Realty Advisors Inc., said today during a panel discussion at the RealShare Apartments 2009 conference in Los Angeles. "Apartments follow job growth."

About $819 million of apartment buildings were sold in the U.S. in August, the latest month available, according to New York-based Real Capital Analytics Inc. That was down 18 percent from July. Building prices averaged $75,000 per apartment unit, compared with more than $120,000 in early 2007, the data provider said.

U.S. apartment vacancies rose to 7.8 percent in the third quarter, the highest since 1986, New York-based real-estate research firm Reis Inc. said earlier this week. The U.S. unemployment rate climbed to 9.8 percent in September, the highest since 1983, according to the Labor Department.

BlackRock Inc., based in New York, is one of the world's largest publicly traded investment management companies, with $1.37 trillion of assets under management as of June 30.

BlackRock is an investor in the Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village apartment complex in New York, which was purchased for $5.4 billion in 2006 and now has a market value of about $2.13 billion, according to an August report by Realpoint LLC.

Apartment Values Likely to Drop More, BlackRock Realty Says [Bloomberg]

For the past few months Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village's local newspaper, Town & Village, has been busy reporting on the increased criminal activity in Tishman Speyer's residential real estate failure.

Today T&V reports that a 28 year-old woman was attacked Sunday night outside 8 Stuyvesant Oval. The tenant was grabbed from behind and dragged into the trees near the building's M level where she was choked. She was able to fight off her attacker and nearby neighbors made enough noise to scare him away.

Unfortunately incidents like this one are becoming all too common in Stuy Town. Last Memorial Day an elderly resident at 447 East 14th Street was attacked in his lobby after someone followed him home from the newsstand on 16th and First Avenue. The same mugger attacked a resident of Peter Cooper Village on East 23rd Street. Police later made an arrest in the case.

Cars are frequently broken into around the complex. In July there were rapes, assaults, and larceny reported. In August a man wielding a knife was arrested in Peter Cooper Village in addition to other acts of burglary and criminal mischief. The criminal activity continued to rise in September with more arrests made for robberies and weapons possession. October is seeing more of the same.

The criminal free-for-all can be blamed on a number of reasons including Stuy Town's non-existent security presence at night, lamp posts with bulbs out in the complex including the Oval, and dark, unmonitored areas that are so over planted that they are a rapists dream come true.

Meanwhile Tishman Speyer has cut back on security and building staff because they have blown through their cash reserve which was meant to tide them over until their red-brick albatross became profitable.

What is it going to take for Jerry and Rob Speyer to start acting like legitimate landlords? A murder? A child abduction? Let's hope not.

Dear Oval ConCierge Members,

That's right! We are back in your box again! We hope that you do not mistake our constant correspondence as some sort of spam or come across as stalkerish, we are just extra super eager to share some new things with you. This time your valuable consearges have compliled a decadint list of chic must go to places for you to spend the month of Cotober, the most blustery of months! After all it's getting chilly outside and chillyer inside so why not get cozy in a dark at an luxurious restaurant with that special someone.

Your concierges have been busyy with the corporate Amex trying out both new and old places in the city for you to enjoy and have come back with a few extra pounds and some sumptuis suggestions. So whether you are in the mood for an cozy brunch at the trendy Extra Vergin or in the mood to experiment with Friends of the Farmer we think you'll find something to cure your insatiabe appetit.

And as always pulease do not forgit if you have any questions please do not hestitate to call or email us or just stop by. And dont frifot to ask about our dog walking service, we have lots of sh*t puppets ready to go!
 
Stay Merry!

Manny
Oval Concierag
American Leisure
Newark Airpot
The thrill with the chill

Via ApartmentRatings.com

"We moved into Stuyvesant Town in December because the area seemed nice and they apartment management seemed like decent people. We had a one bedroom apartment that was originally 3120 a month with either the first month free or they would prorate that first month over the term of the lease. We chose the latter because it made our rent 2880 instead. We wound up having to relocate to another state 6 months into our lease, so we decided we would find someone to transfer the lease to.

We went through all the proper steps of finding a new tenant and we offered the apartment at a lower rate, under the agreement that we would pay the difference for the remainder of the lease. In order to transfer a lease at Stuyvesant Town, the new tenant has to go into the Leasing Office and fill out a credit application like any new tenant would. When our tenant went into the leasing office, the manager asked how much we were going to rent it to them for, and then offered them another apartment at a lower rate!

They deliberately undercut us to prevent us from transferring our lease so that we would have to keep paying and they could also get the rent from the new tenant!! This was only the beginning of our nightmare."

Click the link below for the rest of this review.

Unethical and Immoral Company!!! STAY AWAY FROM STUYTOWN!!!!! [ApartmentRatings.com]

Stuy Town and East Village residents were treated to a low flying chopper that circled the sky for a half hour this morning. Could it be related to the 49 year-old man found dead on the tracks of the L Train around the same time? Maybe. Maybe not. Either way it was a slow commute for those who rely on Stuy Town's only train stop which closed for nearly 2 hours.

What's Going On... [EV Grieve]

Related:
L Train Death [Gawker]
Body Found on Subway Tracks at 14th Street [1010Wins]
Body Found on NYC Subway Tracks [NY Post]

Dear Stuyvesaont Town Residonts,

Fall is in the air. You can smell it. You can see it. And thanks to your heatless apartments, you can feel it! And you know what that means. It's time for you to head to the Ovil with your goobles and goblins and take advantage of the wickedly wondrful events your conceirges have cocked up for you this spooky month of October.

We know that you know that we know that October is a special time of year and a time that should be enjoyed. It's the time of year that we love the most becuase the rats, spiders and rotting greenery in Tishman Speyer's rustic wonderland blend in wonderfully with our halloween decorations!

And what a spookfest we have for you in the oval! We your consearged have created an exciting maze made completely of red tape for you residents to wander though on the way to the management office. Watch out! You may be beheaded by the ghost of Headless Hatzmann!

Potentshil residents are also encourage to join in on the Halloween fun by partaking in a free tour of a model apartment. Creepy bed bugs, spooky spiders, dripping water pipes and blood curdling screams will enterain and intensify the tour of your potentialee new apartment. But worry not friends, if you aren't able to make it in time for all Hallows Eve, we welcome you to stop by anytime as we keep those effects up year round!

So whether you are a hard working family, a bong smoking dude, or a cane wielding senior, we invite you to come see for your self the scinister halloween events we have in store for you.

Manny
ovil Conseiarge
American Leasuire
Newark Airport
Limbs in the bag. bag in the river 

"I live on E. 20 St in Peter Cooper VIllage. I haven't said anything about the ridiculously bad landscaping and having to now dodge mud puddles on the "grass" and/or watch out for people who have not curbed their dog. But, this is enough.  I have an almost 2 year old son who loves to run around. Some genius at Tishman decided to put all around PCV metal signs that say not to allow dogs on the grass. But, the metal signs are the PERFECT height for kids to run into AND they are so sharp all around the sides they will cause injuries.  My son has already run into one and discovered the nice shiny long sharp screws sticking out of the back as well.

I don't own a dog and don't really care if there are dogs allowed now. But create a dog run somewhere so everyone will stop allowing their dogs to run "freely" which I think is illegal in NYC."

- Name withheld

Stuy Town and Peter Cooper Village residents have a new way to fight back against quality of life issues that threaten their safety - and sanity - in Tishman Speyer's crime addled Stuy Town. A new NYC 311 app for the iPhone lets residents report bed bugs, graffiti, and violent muggings conveniently from their cell phone. Overworked voice mail boxes at management can now breathe a heavy sigh of relief.

New iPhone App for 311 [MSNBC] via Bowery Boogie

Deat Stuyvesant Town Residonts!

It has been a while since your most beloved conserje Manny has coresponded with you and for that, he apolojiziz. See, Manny has taken on even more duties at Ovil Consearje to bring you exceptional value for the money all four of our customers spend with us so now we are brining you more value in the form of dog walking.

As customary with Ovil Consearge when you talk we listen and boy have we had our listening ears on! it seems that our residents are busy busy busy! Busy washing bed bugs out of their sheets, busy airing the marjuana smoke out of their apartments, busy getting stuck in the oval bike barriers, and busy throwing dog poo at the windows of olva conseiege. Not nice!

Your valuable conseearrges see that you are so busy maintaining your apratments that some of you dog loving tenants have little time to walk your beloveid pets which is why we are coming to you with this exceptionally convenient offer! Starting this fall which is now, when you trust us to walk your dogs for four time we will throw in a fifth dog walk for free, cause were cool like that. Also manny knows that if he spends his days with his hands inside a sh*t puppet there will be less poo for peoples to throw at the windows of oval consearge.

Plus why trust some stranger dog walker with your cherished pet when you can trust your friends at the OC. After all, you trust us with your email addresses and credit card information so why not your pets!

So come see for yourself, stop by and say say hi and get your free umbrilla. It looks like rain!

manny
ovial conserage
American leuiser
Newark Airpot
Manny and Booker BFFs