Westminster Management made a visit to the building during the day on Friday the 13th, bearing gifts. There were 4 WM executives bearing hotplates, explanations for the gas (waiting on Con Ed inspections), effuse apologies and a passionate desire to right all wrongs/repairs immediately. They said they would be starting immediately and working this weekend. They handed out free hot plates to the tenants that were at home. Those of us that work during the day did not receive one, which is OK because we all had to buy one a month ago when all this started. Here is a photo of one of the free Hotplates.
Looks nice, but those of us that have been using a hotplate burner for a month now find them to be problematic. A tenant's quote...
"the deluxe version: the double burner. I now have 3 burners. Not that I will be able to use them: even one burner trips the circuit breaker if anything else is on."
We all have had the circuit breakers trip in our apartments with the hotplate cooker. Gotta unplug nearly everything else and keep a sharp on it. It seems most of these electrical problems are in the Stabilized units due to neglect and careless mismanagement. There was an electrical fire in the walls in July of 2014. The FDNY did a fine job of snuffing it out, but they had to nearly destroy 2 of the market rate apartments to do it. The firemen kindly but urgently told tenants to pack things you will want to keep if the whole building goes up. They said to pack and stand by. Very SCARY. We were lucky, but its only a matter of time until some other neglected electrical wiring goes off. This fire hazard is a danger to all. I hope all tenants have some kind of renter's insurance. If there is another fire and one must use the fire escape to flee.... well just look at the pictures below.
I think these photos say it all. Not only do these wires pose a deadly threat to the tenants, they also pose the same threat to any emergency response teams like the Police or Fire Dept. The FDNY are our friends. They have had to make multiple visits to 118 and 120 East 4th St the past 2 or 3 years. We have no Super, so the FDNY unfortunately has to put out all sorts of fires that a Super's daily work routine might prevent. These wires are part of the legacy left behind by the Ben Shaoul regime.
We'll pray that all the hot plates in use don't trip all the circuits at once and set the building ablaze. The FDNY can only do so much to protect the citizens in the neighborhood.
Not sure how long this process will take. Some of the tenants in stabilized units were told by the plumbers working on the gas lines that their stoves were too old and would not work with the new gas lines. One can easily envision a scenario where the building is hooked up with gas and the stabilized units go without new stoves or cooking gas. I would like to think that Con Ed would not allow that to happen.
Another tenant quote regarding the hot plate gift.
"I think I said to Jamie that the distribution of hotplates made it look like we were in for a long wait on gas. his reply was that it was all up to Con Ed now."
In retrospect it had all the hallmarks of a calculated Trump-style photo op, except that there were no cameras to record the happy interaction. Which is kind of dumb. And yet still patronizingly calculated. At least when the Donald gives you a baseball cap in Iowa, there's a chance you might end up on a television commercial. I guess the son in law's underlings, Jared's Apprentices, didn't get the memo about media strategy. Donald would know how to handle this situation: 'You're fired."
ReplyDeleteEven in those terms it wasn't a good faith effort to alleviate hardship throughout the building. They brought three boxes of hotplates, but you had to be home to get one. I think they took the unopened boxes away with them. WTF? You had to be there to say: "Thank you, sir. I will think of your warmth and generosity every time i plug it in to heat up my baked beans on the forthcoming Thanksgiving holiday. Since i won't be able to cook a turkey on it. And i will cherish that brief warm moment before the circuit breaker kicks in to shut the hot plate down because of the faulty neglected wiring of the building. But i will think of the can of luke warm baked beans as being half full, not half empty."
Rather than quietly leaving them outside apartment doors....as an understated kindness to all, given the incompetence that triggered this situation... the hotplate handouts were randomized to those who happened to be in the building at the time. If you were a working peasant toiling in the fields to pay your rent .... too bad..... not only did not you not score a deluxe hotplate... you missed your chance to meet a middle level, extended Trump family empire celebrity.
Wow, franz, what are you on?
ReplyDeleteOn a bum trip, fueled by luke warm legumes and tripped circuits.
DeleteI think jared has sent you round the bend, dude. but it's not your fault. Predatory landlords prey on seniors like you in the hopes that you will be judged non competent to live alone and take of yourself. And when you're carted off to the elder care facility, hey, there's another apartment to illegally destablize and add to the estimated 50,000 rent protected apartments in the city that people like Jared Kushner simply and systematically decree are now 'market rate residences.' In the past, at least, they've tended to do an el cheapo renovation as part of the process. Now that he has discovered the twin burner plugin electric range by Cookinex.... well... an actual el cheapo renovation might seem an extravagence. Just get Jamie Stadtmauer to swoop down from 666 Fifth Avenue with a smile and a box of Cookinex plug in hotplates. "Here's your new renovated apartment, sucker, plug it in and suck it up."
DeleteAnother bad actor in the East Village. Seems like Westminster is going to turn out to be as bad as Ben Shaoul. Maybe even worse.
ReplyDeleteWe are in the hands of money hungry motherfuckers and religious nuts...We are truly in deep shit.
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