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A Champion of Ethics Wins The Cooperator's 1999 Award
Every year The Cooperator recognizes individuals who have brought about positive change in the co-op and condo community. We're pleased to announce that P. Leonard ("Len") Jones, president of The New York Association of Realty Managers (NYARM), has been named winner of the 1999 Co-op and Condo Community's Man of the Year Award. Thanks to his commitment to promoting professionalism and ethics in co-op and condo management, residents can be assured that their property managers are meeting the toughest industry standards for ethics and moral behavior. Now is our chance to say thank you for his tremendous effort and determination. Keep up the good work! Read More
The Green Guerillas
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "The earth laughs in flowers." If that's the case, then the Green Guerillas are grinning from ear to ear. While some outreach programs spend a lot of their time working phones and crunching numbers to get work done, this New York-based organization has been brightening neighborhoods and spirits by getting their hands dirty - literally - for 30 years. The Green Guerillas, made up of over 800 volunteers, dozens of employees and generous donors, both corporate and private, have been changing the face of New York for decades using a different set of tools - vegetable seeds, flower pots, topsoil and mural paintings, just to name a few. Read More
The Fine Blue Line
When the Dutch settled in what was then called “New Amsterdam,” a man named Johann Lampo patrolled the trails and paths of the area, keeping the peace and watching for fires. Little did Lampo know that he was the first in a long, honored line of law enforcement officers of New York City. Read More
Darkness Comes to Life
In 1932, when Josephine Baldizzi was six, her mother Rosaria, used to bathe her in the kitchen’s slop sink in their five-story walkup tenement building at 97 Orchard Street. On her walk to school, she wore her father Adolfo’s size 9 shoes and hand-me down clothes. Rosaria tended to the household, and for a time worked long hours in the nearby garment factory. Adolfo was a cabinetmaker, who carried around a toolbox, and did odd jobs to support his family. Read More
Providing Housing for the New Millennium
Housing in New York City has always been influenced by a changing urban landscape, population and demographic shifts, and a class-conscious economic and social strata that determined how people lived and in what neighborhoods they chose to call home. Read More
Maintaining Housing Diversity
In 1974, a group of New York City residents banded
together to preserve affordable housing in the city and the push resulted
in the creation of the advocacy group, Tenants & Neighbors. Since that
time the nonprofit group has been working to preserve lower-income housing
by organizing and educating residents of such housing across the city and
the state.
Read More
Retrofit and Reduce
There is a tendency among many co-op boards, building managers and developers to consider “green” building technologies as extras—or as luxuries that have nothing to do with their need to reduce costs. Read More
Communication and Optimism
There was a time when many of the city’s key
resident management/superintendent associations didn’t communicate
much. The Manhattan Resident Managers Club, Inc., the Metropolitan Building
Managers of New York, the Scandinavian-American Building Managers Guild,
the Superintendents Technical Association (STA), the New York Building
Manager’s Association, and the Hibernia Provident Society got
together about as often as Donald Trump and Billy Crystal sit in bleacher
seats at Yankee Stadium, even though they share many of the same members.
Read More
Answering Westchester's Questions
Westchester County is known for, among other things,
its grand, multi-million dollar mansions and historic homes found in its
posh communities such as Scarsdale, Bronxville and Brewster. Many of these
homes were built in the 1950s, when the economy was prosperous. That
decade, World War II veterans returned to the job market and started
families. To answer the need for more housing for these new families, many
high-rise apartments, single-family homes and duplexes were also built.
Westchester’s website, www.westchestergov.com, coins it as “a
new era of suburbanization” for the American family.
Read More
Knowing the Ropes
Helping veterans and newcomers alike to become certified accredited realty managers (ARMs), the New York Association of Realty Managers (NYARM) has been perfecting the skills of those in the field with their School of Property Management for nearly two years now. Read More
There When it Matters
On October 22, several hundred hurricane evacuees descended on Brooklyn’s New York City College of Technology. The school had been temporarily converted into an evacuation center, where refugees were screened before being sent to shelters that had been set up in two nearby Department of Education buildings. And all this occurred despite the fact that there was no hurricane anywhere near New York City this October. Read More
Building Community and Value
One visit to Great Neck and it’s not hard to figure out why it’s become such a desirable neighborhood to live in. The first Nassau County town you reach driving east out of New York City, Great Neck offers scenic waterfront views, proximity to Manhattan (about 25 minutes on the Long Island Rail Road), parks and shopping. Read More
Growing the Green Apple
When people think of New York City, they tend to think of things like Times Square, The Empire State Building, and Broadway—sparkly icons of the Big Apple. What most people don’t think of when they think of the city is green spaces. Sure, there’s Central Park and a few smaller parks scattered throughout the boroughs, but overall, it’s a concrete jungle out there. Read More
A One-Stop Resource
Individuals and companies all need to be properly covered by insurance but the wide variety of choices can make obtaining that coverage a daunting process. To help buildings and companies make the best choice with minimal hassle, the Insurance Information Institute (III) has become a one-stop-shopping resource for information on all manner of insurance needs. Read More
The Color of Money
All of the city services that co-op and condo owners enjoy come with a price and the agency that is generally the keeper of those very large purse strings is the New York City Department of Finance. Read More
The Building People
Anyone who has ever gazed at the Manhattan skyline knows how much architecture has shaped the heart of New York City. It’s no surprise then that the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA New York) has grown into one of the most active and vital architectural organizations in the world. With a membership of more than 3,200 practicing architects, allied professionals, students and public members, the AIA NY has been involved in the growth of this city for more than a century, through a diverse array of educational and civic activities designed to explore the role of architects in housing, planning, historic preservation and urban design. Read More
A Super Club
Nearly every residential building in the city has one—they’re an integral part of all your building systems, a direct line of communication between your residents, your manager, and your board. They’re on-call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They know things nobody else knows, and can do things nobody else can do. They’re building supers, and they’re the backbone of the city’s thousands of multi-family buildings—co-ops, condos, and rentals alike. Read More
The Mayor’s Anti-Graffiti Task Force
Just about anyone who lived in or visited New York City in the 1980s or early ‘90s probably has vivid recollections of how the city looked back then. The streets were dirty, whole neighborhoods were “off-limits” to anybody who wasn’t looking to get mugged—and the buildings, billboards, and subway system were covered in a thick, ever-changing layer of graffiti. Read More
A Tree With Many Branches
They say that it takes a village to raise a child. If that’s true, then it takes even more than that to keep the thousands of New York City co-ops and condominium building communities solvent, harmonious, and informed. With all its potential social, political, and financial quagmires, who on earth would take on such a job? Enter the Council of New York Cooperatives & Condominiums (CNYC), an organization founded in 1979 by a group of people up to the challenge. Read More
NYSAR
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the New York State Association of Realtors (NYSAR). Since its inception, the organization's mission has been to serve its membership throughout the state of New York in conducting their business as realtors successfully and ethically, while working on legislative issues to protect the right to own, transfer and use residential property. Read More
The Historic Districts Council
Though we tend to think of New York City as modern and up-to-date, this helluva town has a history spanning more than 350 years. Only a few remnants of 1654 survive to remind us of that fact, but of more recent vintage - say of the 19th century - there are whole neighborhoods: Greenwich Village, Brooklyn Heights, the Upper West Side, reminiscent of that era. Some of them are protected from unrestrained demolition because they have been designated historic districts by the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC). Others are not, and unless somebody looks out for them, they could vanish like their predecessor neighborhoods. Read More
From Park to Port
Brooklyn's Community Board 6 - which covers Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, the Columbia Street District, Red Hook, Gowanus and Park Slope - may be one of the most diverse community boards in the city. Read More
The People in Charge
Every New Yorker knows the face of their mayor. But the faces they might not recognize are those of their city council members, a group that wields more power than most state legislatures. Fifty-one individuals make up the New York City Council, representing all five boroughs. Alongside the mayor, the laws they pass affect just about everyone living and working in New York - and it's a role they take seriously. Read More
Inside the Department of Buildings
A number of smaller bureaus and special task forces operate under the control and guidance of the DOB. Some have direct contact with residents, while others interact primarily with contractors, tradespersons, and legal professionals. Read More
Obeying the Code
The Byzantine bureaucracy of New York City's government offices can often seem impenetrable; a warren of offices, commissions, departments, and boards designed more to thwart than to help. While the sheer size of New York insures that the municipal governance system will probably never be as simple as that of a smaller city, there are a few encouraging points of light in the maze. One of those, the New York City Department of Buildings, or DOB, has taken steps to streamline its operations, root out corruption, and make its processes more transparent and easier for ordinary citizens to understand. Read More
NYARM
What do you call an organization whose membership includes property managers, plumbers, electricians, security companies, glass specialists and attorneys? You call it diverse, far-reaching, and multifaceted - but you could also call it the New York Association of Realty Managers, or NYARM. Read More
Community Board 7
Start thinking of the ideal places to live in the city and there's a good chance that the Upper West Side will come to mind pretty quickly. It's generally thought of as one of the most desirable neighborhoods in Manhattan, thanks to its quality of life, schools, scenic beauty and recreation. Read More
Connections Through Camaraderie
Since 1933, the Institute of Real Estate Management (IREM) has been the leading source of the education, credentialing, and development for real estate industry professionals both in the United States and abroad. As an affiliate of the National Association of Realtors, IREM provides credentialing to managers of multifamily apartments, condominiums and homeowners' associations, public and assisted housing, as well as office buildings and shopping centers. Education and certification is available to managers at all levels, from site managers to management company executives. According to the group, IREM is the only organization committed to serving all property managers of all property types. Read More
Painting the Town Green
Did you know that every time you flush the toilet, you use around six gallons of water? Or that compact fluorescent light bulbs use nearly 75 percent less energy than incandescent bulbs and cost far less, too? Read More
Housing Development Fund Corporations
In order to get from one side of the Hudson River to the other, one would need to cross a bridge, get in a boat, or be able to jump a very long distance. Since not many people want to attempt the latter, most people utilize tools like bridges or some sturdy method of transportation when they want to get from Point A to Point B. Read More
Let's Hear it for the Board
Since September 11th, 2001, Manhattan's Community Board No. 1 - one of 59 such boards in Manhattan - has been called above and beyond its usual duties to tend to the needs of residents living in TriBeCa, Battery Park City, the Financial District, the Seaport, and the Civic Center. Community Board 1, or CB1 as it's often called, is an advisory body. The city charter designates its role in such matters as land use, determining local budget priorities, and monitoring city services delivery. Read More
Professional Women in Construction
As we wind our way along city streets and avenues, carefully navigating the most direct route to our final destination, most of us are somehow able to tune out the ambient roar that surrounds us. The traffic, the jackhammers, the bulldozers, and the backhoes - the list goes on and on. We're usually too busy to be bothered with the question of just who is operating these machines, and who is behind the business end of these massive projects. Would it ever enter our minds that it might well be a woman climbing aboard a backhoe in a pair of dusty work boots or supervising a job site? Upon taking a closer look, you might find someone you didn't expect performing a job not often equated with them. Read More
Manhattan Association of Realtors
If you're house hunting anywhere outside of Manhattan, you can waltz into pretty much any real estate office in the town of your choice and, within minutes, with a click of the mouse, your agent can produce a list of every available property in your price range. Even in less technologically advanced offices, your agent can leaf through listing books to find all available choices. Read More
Keep History Standing
New York has been dubbed "The Greatest City on Earth" for a myriad of reasons - not least of which is the Big Apple's sheer architectural impressiveness. Legendary buildings and neighborhoods like the Empire State Building and Harlem are recognized around the globe and rich in history. Since the late 1960s, New York City has made a commitment to preserve these and other less recognizable - though no less historically valuable - sites. To try to repair or alter a landmarked building requires a lot of legal wrangling and bureaucratic red tape and money, even if the building is a privately owned residential building. Read More
