On People, Policy, and Paranoia
I was on the No 1 local as it slowly pulled into the 96th Street station. There was an express train waiting across the platform. Our conductor made an announcement: “Ladies and gentlemen, we will be here for some time. The express across from us will be leaving immediately. If possible, take the express.”
SECURITY & SARCASM
The three incidents at the Manhattan co-op happened within two weeks of each other, and each was disturbing in its own way…
(DON’T) LET THEM EAT CAKE
Being on a board is like being on a diet. You know it’s for your own good, but it can get very tedious. Sure, you should eat soup and salad but doesn’t the cream-filled chocolate cake seem so much tastier?
SNAKE OIL SALESMAN
Mr. Haney lives on. Not the actual Mr. Haney – actor Pat Butram, who played the unusual salesman on TV’s Green Acres from 1965-71, died some years ago – but a close facsimile…
MOT RETOS
It was the first time I had heard this particular theory of behavior. “In a co-op,” said the articulate board president, “it’s an 80/20 situation.” …
NOW WE ARE SIX
I woke up in what seemed to be my bedroom.
But it was strangely different.
“Where am I?” I asked the shadowy figures standing before me…
WHITHER PERRY MASON?
In my youth, I always admired TV’s premier attorney, Perry Mason. In every episode…
WHEN CHAPLIN WAS MY NEIGHBOR
Neighborliness is next to godliness. At least, that’s what my father might have said if he had been big on the Godliness thing…
I knew how Captain Kirk must have felt. Kirk, as most people who haven’t lived in a cave for the past 40 years know, was the dynamic leading man in TV’s ground-breaking mid-sixties science-fiction series…
“What are you doing?” I called out in the night.
My girlfriend was standing by the window of our darkened bedroom, peering out into the alleyway.
“There are two guys on the roof of that building,” she said, indicating the small, two-story structure that abutted our six-story co-op and the building next door. “They’re doing some kind of work.”…
Years ago, Habitat conducted a survey of the “most pressing issues” faced by co-ops and condos. One of the answers went like this: “The most pressing issue in our co-op? Security…
Sheldon Gartenstein, a senior vice president at the National Cooperative Bank, is matter-of-fact about the refinanced loan he handled recently for the 74-unit cooperative at 760 West End Avenue. “This particular co-op needed capital improvement funding of about a million dollars,” he recalls…