2002 Aug
2002 Aug Vol. 22, No. 8
Focus on...Insurance
East Side Luxury on the West Side
A region composed of squatters' shacks, leveled forests, and graveyards might seem an unlikely birthplace for the Dakota, one of the Upper West Side's most luxurious addresses, but to a maverick businessman like Edward S. Clark, the head of Singer Sewing Machine Co., such a desolate locale was fertile breeding ground for the birth of a legend. Read More
UCC Changes Could Mean Challenges for Boards
The Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) is essentially an assemblage of various statutes enacted to regulate commercial transactions which - to encourage national commerce - are adopted in the same form by virtually every state. Currently, the new and updated Article 9, which governs secured transactions (usually bank loans secured by pledges of personal property), is in use in more than 40 states. Since the late 1980s, there have been technical variations in the New York version of the pre-existing Article 9 with respect to co-ops' filing requirements, duration of those filings, etc. for a variety of reasons - including encouraging banks to make subordinate loans against cooperatives. Read More
Making Your Building Secure
In the post 9/11 world, building owners and managers have to feel a little bit like "Big Brother"¯ the tyrannical, all-seeing, all-knowing holographic presence that George Orwell chillingly wrote about in his classic sci-fi novel 1984. In Orwell's fictionalized setting in a futuristic society, citizens were monitored by huge telescreens that contained the visage of Big Brother and police interpreted facial expressions and voice intonations to determine a person's truthfulness. Read More
FRIENDS Indeed
You might wonder what three Modernist buildings on the Upper East Side have to do with an organization that has historically been dedicated to preserving things, well, historical. But recently, preservation group Friends of the Upper East Side Historic District began looking into obtaining landmark status for three postwar buildings: the Manhattan House - an apartment building on East 66th Street that was the first "white brick"¯ (or "grayish slab"¯ to the untrained eye) building on the Upper East Side, built in 1950; Cinema I and II, built in 1962; and the Beekman Theatre and Block, built in 1952 - both of which were formerly art house theaters. Read More
Protecting Home and Hearth
It's every homeowner's worst nightmare: you come home from work to find your apartment flooded, or your building smoldering from a kitchen fire that got out of control. After the initial trauma, there could be worse shocks in store if you're not properly insured. Read More
Covering All the Bases
Accidents happen. Things go wrong. It's a simple fact of life. And sometimes the only course of action is simply to protect against the consequences. Liability insurance takes the sting out of the unknown, creating a safety net for those worrisome moments. Read More
Bracing for the Worst
Before last September, chances are that most people didn't give much thought to whether acts of terrorism were covered by their homeowner's insurance. Co-op boards and condo associations were more concerned with whether their "all-risk"¯ policy covered damage from water seepage and other chronic ills than from malicious, catastrophic damage. Since that fateful day when terrorist-flown airplanes brought down landmark commercial buildings and caused millions of dollars in damage to the surrounding residential properties in Lower Manhattan, the insurance industry has undergone tremendous changes. Although most New York City residents doubt that they will be the victims of a terrorist act, insurers and lenders have to picture a worst-case scenario. Read More
