RAFFLES! 

Sell them - and buy them! - to support our

Tenants Association.

First Prize: Dinner for 2 on Spirit Cruise - Dining, Dancing & Live Entertainment! 

SECOND PRIZE : 16 AMC/ Loew's/Cineplex theater tickets

THIRD PRIZE: $50 Gift Certificate to Gabriela's Mexican restaurant

FOURTH PRIZE: $50 Gift Certificate to Ozen (Asian Fusion) Restaurant

FIFTH PRIZE: $25 Coupon for Food City Supermarket

DONATION FOR OUR LEGAL FUND: $2 / TICKET

($10 / book)

DRAWING to be held at our SPRING POT LUCK

May 22nd, 2010

If you haven't yet received raffles to sell, please contact your floor captain! 

Make your check out to "Central Park Gardens Legal Fund" and give it to your floor captain. (If you are paying cash, remember to get a receipt.)  If friends outside the building want to support our legal fund, they should contact Sue.

Recycling Rules from NYC

Click here for What and How to Recycle
(from NYC site)

Contact the building staff if you want to discard or recycle LARGE objects, and check "computer recycling NYC" for commercial companies that recycle computers in the city.

US Govt. questioning Gluck's rents at Independence Plaza North

The article below concerns one of the first developments that Gluck bought and took out of the Mitchell-Lama program.  Because Independence Plaza North was built AFTER 1973 (unlike our building), its rents would go to market rate.  However, the strong tenant association there negotiated a "Landlord Assistance Plan" (LAP) so that rents would increase to market rate - but gradually.  And since that building (unlike ours) had a federally-assisted mortgage while under Mitchell-Lama, many lower-income tenants there qualified for Section 8 enhanced vouchers. Under those vouchers, tenants pay a third of their household income in rent and the federal government pays the landlord the rest of the rent.   The question of how high the rent is, therefore, concerns the federal government.

DOWNTOWN EXPRESS

Volume 22, Number 39 | The Newspaper of Lower Manhattan | February 5 - 11, 2010

Downtown Express file photo by Lorenzo Ciniglio

Independence Plaza landlord Laurence Gluck, at a tenants meeting five years ago. His attorney, Stephen Meister, said this week that if tenants win their rent stabilization case “I’m going to make it my personal business to completely take the building to market. Everyone gets screwed if [tenant attorney] Miller wins.”

Feds say Gluck is gouging I.P.N.

By Julie Shapiro

Tenants of Independence Plaza North have been arguing for years that their apartments should be rent-stabilized — and now U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara is taking up the cause.

Bharara’s office wants to recover tens of millions of dollars the federal government paid I.P.N. owner Laurence Gluck to support the Tribeca apartment complex’s low-income tenants. Bharara, in New York’s Southern District, also wants many of I.P.N.’s 1,339 apartments declared rent-stabilized.

Be a Heat & Hot Water Monitor

Some apartment lines seem warmer than others, and some apartments have defective balcony doors - ensuring cold temperatures.  In addition to trying to get those doors replaced, we want to monitor every apartment line so we can ask Stellar to adjust the computer that sets our boiler temperatures.  (It is also possible that apartments higher up are colder.)

HEAT MONITORS:

TheTenants' Association now has 9 digital apartment thermometers that we can lend out for a week at a time to tenants to keep track of the temperature in their apartments for their line.

It means noting the temperature at least twice a day for a week.  (3 times a day is better, but many people work outside their homes).

THREE-TIMES-A-DAY PLAN:

• In the morning  (preferably not close to 6 AM since that's when the legal temperature shift occurs from 55 to 68 degrees)
• Some time between noon and 3 PM-ish 
• Evenings before10 PM (10 PM is when the legal temperature shift occurs from 68 to 55 degrees).

TWICE-A-DAY PLAN:

•  Mornings (preferably not close to 6 AM since that's when the legal temperature shift occurs from 55 to 68 degrees)
•  Evenings before10 PM (10 PM is when the legal temperature shift occurs from 68 to 55 degrees).

HOT WATER MONITORS - This is for early risers only, since it must be done between 5 and 5:45 AM: Let the water run for 2 minutes and check whether it is hot.

We have volunteers for some of the lines for HEAT and for two of the lines for HOT WATER. Contact Sue to sign up!

SUMMARY of JAN. 20, 2010 GENERAL TENANTS MEETING

--> I. Sorrow, then celebration.

We began with a statement of support for our neighbor Egyptienne Alexandre, whose friends and family in her native Haiti have not been heard from since the devastating earthquake there.  (Announced: Sen. Bill Perkins held a Town Hall meeting on January 21st on the situation and how to help.)

From sorrow, we moved on to celebrate the ongoing life of tenant Sol Frieder, the oldest working actor in the United States.   He recently co-starred with Sam Waterston in Athol Fugard’s play, “Have you seen us” at the Longwharf Theater in New Haven, and has worked with Woody Allen as well.  He was particularly praised by former tenant association president Ruth Ellin, a stalwartof the  Yiddish theatre - the  “Folksbiene” - and the Hebrew Actors Union.

Wed., Jan. 20th - our next General Tenants Meeting

At the next General Tenants Meeting, come discuss

• the appliance surcharge case (new developments)
  
• heat (or lack thereof)
  
• Albany and saving rent regulation (Espada is Senate Housing Chair - again!)
• building finances
• neighborhood activities, including the Community Board

and hold elections for two openings on the Executive Committee.

Bring a chair and a neighbor! 

An Actor in our Midst - Sol Frieder

There are several wonderful actors who live in this building, and among them is Sol Frieder, who recently completed a run at New Haven's Long Wharf Theater, in South African playwright Athol Fugard's latest.  Below is a review with some terrific photos.  You may recognize Sam Waterston (most known as Jack McCoy in "Law and Order") on the left in the photo below and Sol Frieder all the way on the right. Sol is now the oldest actor in the U.S. regularly on stage with an "Equity" performance.

--> www.talkinbroadway.com

CONNECTICUT
Regional Reviews by Fred Sokol

Have You Seen Us?
Long Wharf Theatre

Arresting and intimate, this world premiere is the first of the esteemed playwright's works to be situated in the United States. Sit, if you are able, close to the stage which affords proximity to the action on three sides. Should you be familiar with Fugard's texture and purpose, Have You Seen Us? will remind you that he mixes emotion with impact as few others can or could.
Athol Fugard, the South African writer, returns to Long Wharf Theatre with his most moving effort in years—a piercing, poignant drama, Have You Seen Us?, which continues in New Haven through December 20th.



CLICK ON THE LINK FOR THE REST OF THE ARTICLE.