For everyone who was railing about the encroachment of illegal "hotel" apartments in Stuyvesant Town, this e-mail comes from the WSNA. Even if you can't attend the rally, you can contact the governor to sign the bill.

Press conference to call on Gov. Patterson to sign illegal hotels bill: NOW ON WEDNESDAY!

The Illegal Hotel Bill gained major ground with its passage in the NYS Assembly following Senate approval. Big thanks to everyone who called Speaker Silver and asked him to pass it. Now we need to ensure the Governor passes the bill. Join us and the electeds who supported the bill for a press conference asking Governor Patterson to sign the bill.

What: Tenant rally & press conference in support of the illegal hotels bill

When: Wednesday, July 21st at 11am, (please arrive by 10:30am)

Where: 1 Centre Street (R to City Hall, 2/3 to Park Place, A/C/E to Chambers, 4/5/6 to Brooklyn Bridge). There's a chance it will be moved across the street to the steps of City Hall. We'll have signs and someone directing people to the right location.

Please call Bennett at 212-956-2585 or email him at BBaumer@hcc-nyc.org to RSVP and/or to make posters with us on Monday, July 19th for the press conference.

In addition to coming to the rally, everyone please email, write, call or fax Governor Patterson NOW asking him to stop the loss of NYC apartments to illegal hotels and Sign A.10008/S.6378.

  • Write to: Governor David A. Paterson, State Capitol, Albany, New York 12224
  • Call the Governor's office at 518-474-8390 or Fax to 518-486-1921.
  • E-mail the Governor by visiting - www.state.ny.us/governor - this will take you to the Governor's home page and in the navigation on the left side of the homepage there's a link to "contact" and from there another link to "e-mail the governor."

Lobbyists working against the bill are the RSA and a travel website that represents big illegal hotels operators. These operators are taking hundreds of rent stabilized apartments out of the market and renting them out as hotels and hostels, to the dismay of the other tenants in the buildings and the rooms often have fire and safety violations. 

We also had some great press coverage in the past week. For a more detailed discussion of the bill, listen to Assembly Member Dick Gottfried in a July 8 interview on the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. There as also a great editorial in the New York Times calling on Governor Patterson to pass the bill.

For more info or to get involved, contact Bennett at 212-956-2585 or BBaumer@hcc-nyc.org.
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Via NY Times

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AFTER graduating from Duke University this spring, Karan Sabharwal landed a job in finance in New York City. He had a plan to make Manhattan living affordable.

He would lease a nice one-bedroom apartment, convert it to a two-bedroom space with a temporary wall and split the rent with a friend.

But when he went to check out the Rivergate, a high-rise apartment building in Kips Bay, he was told by the property manager that partitions were no longer allowed.

"I told her I had friends in nearby buildings that had put up the walls," he said. "She said, 'We have adopted the policy, like many other buildings in the neighborhood, that you will not be able to put up the full wall anymore.' "

As the city aggressively enforces a long existent but widely ignored code, walls are falling across Manhattan, radically altering the housing landscape for scores of young professionals. Thousands of renters are being told that the walls that have been put up over the years without approval from the Department of Buildings must come down. And new renters are being informed that if they wish to divide a space, they will need to rely on bookshelves or partial walls that don't reach the ceiling.

"The impact has already been dramatic," said Gordon Golub, the senior managing director for rentals at Citi Habitats. "Landlords are all trying to come to some sort of conclusion as to what they are going to do in allowing any walls or a different sort of wall that might go up, and it is affecting brokers and customers."

Manhattan apartments are as varied as the roommates who decide to share a place. Because of this, there are no rules that apply universally. But in all cases, temporary walls must not block exit routes or interfere with the ventilation and sprinkler systems. And there are minimum requirements for room size.

The current focus on temporary walls is driven by two developments: prosecutors' decision to level manslaughter charges at the owners of a building where a fatal fire occurred in 2005 and, more recently, the city's drive to eliminate illegally installed temporary walls in Stuyvesant Town, the sprawling complex between 14th and 23rd Streets on the East Side.

After tenants' complaints and subsequent inspections by both the Fire Department and the Department of Buildings, Tishman Speyer, the owner of Stuyvesant Town, embarked this spring on a review of all its apartments and moved swiftly to eliminate all walls that were not up to city code.

"It was determined that partition walls previously installed in some apartments were not in compliance with the New York City Building Code," the company said in a statement. It declined to go into the extent of the complaints or who had lodged them.

Continue reading "The Fall of Temporary Apartment Walls" @ NY Times
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The Ecology Center will recycle electronic waste ("e-waste") from New York City residents. Bring your unwanted or broken electronics to the collection events to have them recycled responsibly. A list of acceptable materials can be found here. We do not accept home appliances such as microwaves or refrigerators and cannot accept any electronics from businesses. Registration is not required for this event.
 
The LESEC would like to thank Con Edison for their ongoing support of our e-waste program and Panasonic, Sharp, Toshiba, Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America, Vizio, Assembly Member Brian Kavanagh, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Councilmember Robert Jackson, Councilmember Brad 

Lander, and Council Speaker Christine Quinn for co-sponsoring these events. A special thank-you goes to all of our host sites.

Where: Just inside the loop road at 14th Street and Avenue A

When: Sunday, July 18, 2010 - 10am - 4 pm

What to Get Rid of:

- Computers (laptops & desktops, servers, mainframes)

- Monitors
- Printers, scanners, fax-machines, copiers
- Network devices (routers, hubs, modems, etc.)
- Peripherals (keyboards, mice, cables, etc.)
- Components (hard drives, CD-ROMs, circuit boards, power supplies, etc.)
- TVs, VCRs, & DVD Players
- Audio-visual equipment
- Cell phones, pagers, PDAs
- Telecommunication (phones, answering machines, etc.)
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Via The Real Deal

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Four New York City addresses made their debuts on Trepp's list of distressed properties in June, and one made a re-entry, according to data compiled for The Real Deal (see chart below). New to the 48-item New York City list is Argus Realty's 32,049-square-foot office property at 246 Fifth Avenue, which is 60 days delinquent with a $14.5 million loan balance, and two Bronx multi-family portfolios in foreclosure, with loan balances of $36.5 million and $35 million. Another newcomer is 405 East 77th Street, a 15-unit apartment building that's 60 days delinquent with a $3 million loan balance. 

Back on the list in June was the Core Club retail space at 60 East 55th Street. The high-end club takes up five floors of RFR Realty's mixed-use condominium tower known as Park Avenue Place. The club was on Trepp's list in April as a foreclosure property with a $17.89 million loan balance, but exited the list in May. Now classified as 90 or more days delinquent, the property has returned to Trepp's list with a slightly-improved $17.84 million loan balance.

Four properties exited Trepp's list in June: two Walgreens properties -- one in Queens and one in Staten Island -- as well as 110-113 55th Avenue, a multi-family property in Corona, Queens, and 1995-2001 Coney Island Avenue in the Gravesend section of Brooklyn. 

Meanwhile, the city's top three distressed properties from May (click here to look at the May list) held onto their titles last month. Foreclosed complex Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village once again came in first by a wide margin with $3 billion in loans outstanding, followed by Joseph Moinian's 1775 Broadway office property, which was upgraded to 90 days delinquent from 60 days but came in with a $248.7 million loan balance, down from $248.93 in May. The bank-owned Riverton Apartments in Harlem came in third with $225 million in outstanding loans.

Continue reading "Four New Properties Make NYC Distressed List" @ The Real Deal
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stuy-town-oval-events.jpgDear Stuyvesnt Town Residonts,

It is finally hear, the blistering month of July! The fireworks lit up the sky, the music has lit up the oval, and we your most valuablle consearjes are lit in the OC office. Sinse our incredibly varied services go mostly unrequested we have nothing to do but spark one up and write to you, our fine residents of Stuyvesant Towm.

Today is a hot one! That old mercury is zooming on up into the hundreds which can mean only one thing. Time to get the children and grandparents to the oval for festive fun in the sun! And boy wait until you see what whe have in storage for you!

From mad dope art battles, to a course on how to get hammered to an educational playgroup, we have everything you need to keep your summer a fresh mix of various things to do.

So as there is no need for you to stop by the OC for that free umbilla, feel free to stop by an say hi to manny and perhaps well smoke a pinner. Who knows.

Manny
Oval Conceriace
American Leairerrse
Newark Airport
Bad Ass Dog Wakler
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447-east-14th-street-laundry.jpgIt's no secret clothes get stolen from Stuy Town laundry rooms all the time but 447 East 14th Street seems to be ground zero for people who can't afford their own clothing."Disgusting creeps" steal infant clothing while sports fans steal Bruins jerseys. Today we get an e-mail from a resident of 447 who has been having specific items of clothing go missing the past few weeks. He writes:

"I'm really, really, really over having to dorm-proof my life in Stuy Town which will now have to include guarding my laundry while it's in the dryer!!! Over the past few weeks I have been noticing some of my shirts have gone missing. At first I thought they might be in the closet, or mixed in with the towels, but after ripping my apartment apart today I've come to realize that someone has been stealing my clothes from the dryer.

I know they are being stolen by what has gone missing. Six new black, American Apparel t-shirts, some crew, some v-neck, a black Zoo York t-shirt, and a pair of dark jeans. None of my old clothes are missing, none of my gym clothes are missing, none of my towels or sheets, just these very specific items which add up to more than $200.

I'm so sick of living like this. My options are to sit with a book in the laundry room while my clothes dry or take them across the street, and run back and forth for two hours? Absolutely ridiculous! God HELP the person I see wearing my clothes. I'll rip them off his back"
Now, petty thieves, you may go live in fear of a swift and fierce ass-kicking.
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sony-a-go-go.jpgRogue laundry carts aren't just for senile seniors! A Sty Spy snapped this photo of a Sony TV being carted around in one of Stuy Town's post-war-chic laundry carts. The steamed spy writes:

"Since we're on the topic of laundry carts today, someone in 14 Oval thought it would be handy to cart their broken Sony down to the recycle area on this cart. Too bad they didn't have the f*cking decency to unload it."
Have fun picking the dust bunnies off your wet clothes!
| 37 Comments
thieving-grandpa-4.jpgWhat do you do when you're caught red-handed using a laundry cart as wheelbarrow? Slip into some convenient senior dementia of course!

That's exactly what Mr. Crabs here did when a resident reminded him that laundry carts are meant for laundry and not as your own personal shopping cart. The Sty-Spy writes:

"This guy stole this [laundry cart] - removed the sign and keeps it in his apt. When I challenged him about it instead of acting like a mature man, he disparaged me and told me to mind my business. Then told me I stunk and that he wanted to puke and I should take a shower.  

PS note his new BMW and that he so carelessly parks by a hydrant."

WHAT a class act! Let's hope crazy grandpa visits more often!
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