Prudence Opperman is in rehab at Mt. Sinai after a very
bad fall and resulting brain surgery.
Her daughter Roie thanks those who have expressed concern or
visited. Prue welcomes visits.
Intercoms: Please give up to 2 phone
numbers to Stellar at 212-222-4430 to link to your intercom, and give the
intercom number to all visitors and delivery people. It’s the number next to
your name on the chart in the entry foyer. If you get a phone call from the
intercom, press 9 to let the person
in.
Electricity: Ignore phone calls urging you to
reduce your electric bill by changing providers. We have no control over that;
Stellar does.
Fire
Department’s Lieutenant Frank Minetta
Lt. Minetta, a Fire Department veteran of 35 years, left four different flyers and gave us several important
pieces of information, among them:
·
In our
non-combustible building, stay in your apartment
if there is a fire elsewhere in the building. (You’ll probably hear the fire truck
sirens.) So do not knock on your
neighbors doors to get them to leave:
Hallways and stairwells can become smoky quickly, and the Fire Dept.
takes control over the elevators. If the
fire is in your apartment, get out, close your door to stop the fire from
spreading, and call 911. (You can check for a tenant association email
about it if there is a fire.)
· Check your smoke and carbon
monoxide detectors, and change
the batteries when we change our clocks forward and back. The smoke detector should emit 3 beeps; the
carbon monoxide detector 4 quick beeps.
Test it monthly. If you’re
cooking something smoky, press the “silence” button, which will mute the
detector for a few minutes – enough time to open a window (but don’t disable
the detector)! A fire produces both smoke and carbon monoxide so both
alarms could go off. It’s a good idea to
have a combined detector in your bedroom to wake you in case of emergency. If your detector is broken, ask Stellar to
replace it (for $25 or $35) for one whose battery will last 10 years.
· Fire extinguishers, if you have them, should be
used to escape from fires, rather than to put them out. Let the fire department
do that. If something catches fire on
your stove, turn off the stove and cover the pan that’s on fire. If you spray the top of your stove, for
example, that could push the fire back and up the wall. Extinguishers last 12 years; shake them
gently every few months to keep the baking soda inside from caking up. Get only the “ABC” or “multi-purpose”
extinguishers if you get any.
· The doors to the stairwells are fire doors and must remain shut when
not in use. If you pass by one and it’s not completely closed, please close it
and write a note at the guard’s desk that it did not “self-close” so it can be
fixed. Stellar building manager Niti
Jakupaj said he would check them all and fix the exit doors from the
stairwells onto the front terrace so
they can be easily pushed open.
·
Gas:
Probably in the autumn, when permits come through, Stellar will be
converting from using oil to heat the water in the building’s basement boilers
to using gas. The gas will not go
directly into our apartments and will not affect the gas that already comes in to
our stoves. Gas will not be stored in
our building: it will come from Con Edison pipes. We will also have the 20,000 gallons of oil
that we usually keep in the basement in case the weather drops below 16⁰F (when
it’s too cold for Con Ed to push enough gas through its system). If you smell gas coming from your stove,
check to ensure the stove is off, open a window to air the place out if you
want, and get out. Then call 911. Carbon monoxide is naturally odorless and
tasteless and invisible – but by law a smell is added to it, and the carbon
monoxide Stellar provides should detect any leak.
·
Surge protectors are safer than power strips,
which are safer than extension cords.
· Get
obstacles out of the hallway. Don’t keep wet boots &
umbrellas, bicycles or other items in the hallway. If the hallway fills with
smoke, fire fighters will not see them and you will make it harder for them to
get through (and yourself or your neighbors, if the fire is in in one of your
apartments).
·
Don’t leave flammable items in
the compactor room. Bring them downstairs to the
large garbage room on each side of the building. Keep papers high up on the shelf.
·
Questions? Call the Fire Department at
718-999-2541 and leave a message.
Executive
Committee
Greg Murray has become an “emeritus” member as he recovers from a
stroke. We welcomed two new members to
the executive committee: Denis Hayward,
who has lived here for over 30 years, and Ray Von Dohren, who has lived here
for four years. Both expressed our intent to represent all tenants –
rent stabilized and market.
Meeting with
Building Manager
Executive Committee members met with Niti Jakupaj, who promised to
· Check the
stairwell doors so they close by themselves and the door exiting to the front
terrace has a push-bar
·
Have a staff
member adjust the push bars on the building’s side doors twice a week
·
Check the
elevator doors and noises
· Ask all
guests and deliverymen to use the intercom or have the doorman phone tenants to
say who is coming up
·
Put “please
close door” signs on the front glass doors
· Fix the
cracks in the front terrace.
If you have a crack in your terrace, please write out a
requisition slip at the guard’s desk.
Politics affecting
us. Tenants
should write to
to urge them to actively support
· protection
for market-rate tenants such as a guaranteed lease renewal and reasonable
limits on rent increases,
· repeal of
the Urstadt Law, which took control over rents and evictions away from NY City
and gave it to NY State, and
· repeal of
vacancy decontrol, which motivates landlords to get apartments vacant and
de-regulate them.
The next
Rent Guidelines Board hearings in Manhattan are June 16 (taking public
testimony) from 2-6 PM downtown, and June 23 (the final vote). Landlords know that this is the first time in
years there could be a rent freeze, and they’re turning out in droves. Tenants
have to support RGB members who could vote for us. If you
plan to testify, please register first at 212-385-2934. Got to the June 16 meeting with Joan
Browne & Steve Koulish.
Got questions?
Ask us and join us! Just $10/year per apartment.
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