SHEEPSHEAD BAY'S ONLY INDEPENDENT NEWS BLOG

Parts of 301 Oriental Blvd remains filled with a toxic oil-water mixture. (Photo by Susan Vosburgh)

Some of Southern Brooklyn’s landlords appear to be slow to help in fighting for their tenants’ rights to heat, hot water and electricity, and may even be adding obstacles to the mix.

Take, for instance, the case of 301 Oriental Boulevard in Manhattan Beach, which we told you about last week. A horrible stench has haunted the building for weeks, ever since Hurricane Sandy flooded the basement, causing water to mix with barrels of oil in storage. Residents complain the landlord has done little to rectify the situation, and many are concerned about their health as headaches and fatigue have set in.

“It’s been a month, going on a month, and we still have no utilities,” said 20-year-resident Susan Vosburgh. “Apparently there’s still oil in the building. I doubt any utilities will touch us because it has to be safe when they come in.”

Although pumping has already occurred, Vosburgh said the unskilled migrant workers the landlord hires keep missing rooms filled with the toxic oil-water mixture, and just this morning returned for the umpteenth time to pump out the elevator pit. On their first attempt at draining the basement, she claims they illegally pumped the hazardous materials into the street.

“The migrant workers he gets for like a dollar an hour, they forget this room and that room,” Vosburgh said. “I just want this cleaned up, we’re breathing the fumes.”

Continue Reading »

Source: JohnnyBarker / Flickr

For some people, Hurricane Sandy came and went, barely disrupting their lives or neighborhoods. Others, especially the elderly living in Brighton Beach and Coney Island, were not nearly as lucky. A report in the New York Daily News chronicles the weeks-long nightmare that elderly New York City Housing Authority residents have faced in Sandy’s aftermath.

Virtual prisoners of their own apartments, scores of seniors were shut in their homes without power, heat, hot water, and medical supplies, and had no one coming by to check in on or assist them. New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio blames the mayor’s office and NYCHA for failing to do a more extensive door to door check of people’s homes affected by shortages of essential needs.

The city claims to have visited more than 65,000 apartments, with 42,000 of those being NYCHA properties. However, de Blasio told The Daily News that the effort wasn’t enough. “They’re missing whole parts of the city. It’s scattershot. We hear it over and over: ‘No one has knocked on our door.’”

Those the city missed include Irine Lombardo, a 74-year-old Coney Island resident forced to evacuate her flood-damaged apartment to a friend in Brighton Beach. During the storm, she lost her oxygen tanks, and when forced to relocat to a friend’s fifth floor apartment in Brighton Beach, she had no access to electricity, heat, or hot water, leaving her trapped and vulnerable, and without proper medical care.

Irine’s friend, Olga Romanov, told The Daily News that, “Nobody came to us from the city. Nobody came to us from NYCHA.”

Through the combined efforts of de Blasio’s office and volunteers from the Physicians for a National Health Program, Lombardo finally got her oxygen tanks this past Sunday.

Volunteers sort clothing and other goods dropped off at Warbasse (Photo: Alex Morozov)

Hundreds of seniors and other residents remain trapped in Coney Island’s major co-op developments, and efforts to help them are hampered by supply shortages and language barriers.

Volunteers sort clothing and other goods dropped off at Warbasse (Photo: Alex Morozov)

When Esther grabbed me by the arm, pulled me in for a hug and told me I was the only person who had come to see her in days, I cried. This was an 80-year-old woman living on the 19th floor of Building 3 in the Luna Park co-ops. While all of the other buildings have electricity and some have water, Esther and anyone else above the 10th floor does not.

Hesitant to open the door at first, she eventually revealed that she didn’t prepare well and didn’t have water. She was starting to feel lightheaded. When I saw her face-to-face, she could only ask about her 82-year-old brother in Building 5; she didn’t know that his building had power and water.

Bensonhurst Bean food writer David Cohen and I walked up to the 20th floor with as many water bottles as we could carry. Then we made our way down through the dark hallways, knocking on doors and checking in with over the 160 or so mostly Russian-speaking seniors living in Building 3. We ran out of supplies by the 15th floor.

Unable to make the trek down many flights of stairs for food or water, and with few outsiders aware of their plight, the seniors are trapped. In fact, most of the high-rise co-ops west of Ocean Parkway that house a large senior population are without water, heat or electricity. In some cases, they are without all three. The potential of the freezing nor’easter to come along the East Coast early next week makes this situation a deadly one. 

Keep reading, and find out how you can help.

Gallo joins members of the Cooperative Community Organization (Source: Gallo campaign)

Don’t be fooled into thinking the campaigns for the 45th Assembly District, currently occupied by Assemblyman Steven Cymbrowitz, are over. The September 13 primary that saw Cymbrowitz best Ben Akselrod was only the first round, and the incumbent now faces off against Republican Russ Gallo.

Gallo is ramping up his campaign and is now borrowing a play from Akselrod’s book, seizing on the mounting frustration of  some of the district’s co-op owners who find themselves swept up in divisive battles with their co-op boards’ alleged abuses. [UPDATED]

Continue Reading »

Source: estately.com

Hardly a week goes by where Sheepshead Bites doesn’t receive an e-mail from an aggrieved co-op apartment building resident, taking issue with their board. Sometimes they even organize anti-board rallies or try to usurp the board altogether. And one thing’s for sure, there ain’t much oversight over these quasi-corporate, quasi-residential buildings.

Well, now there’s a show for them – and anyone else thinking of buying a co-op unit.

The Russian American Community Coalition of New York (RACCNY) is set to create “Co-Op Passions,” a reality show which will depict the many issues related to the rights of cooperative shareholders.

A “co-op,” or cooperative, is a jointly owned commercial venture that constructs and allocates goods and services. They are generally run in order to benefit their shareholders. However, as will be demonstrated in the show, Co-ops can come along with more harm than benefits.

The show will presumably include 10 episodes, which are to be aired on YouTube and Facebook. It will convey true stories of New York shareholders and the issues they faced with the Co-op board members, sponsors, supers, and management companies. Names will be changes in order to protect the identities of those featured in the show.

The first five episodes of this reality show are already underway. The first episode, entitled “Problems Problems Problems…” will display the rampant infringements on the rights of cooperative shareholders. “Where Has Our Money Gone?” the second episode, will portray the misuse of monetary power in Co-ops. The third episode, “What Can I Do?” will educate shareholders on ways in which they can protect their rights and interests. The fourth, “Independent Inspection,” shows a situation in which an independent inspection of a shareholder is arranged. “Legal Aid,” the fifth episode, will feature stories of cooperative shareholders who attempted to file a complaint through the office of the Attorney General.

This show is part of a project that wishes to expose the unknown side of Co-op ownership. Through the use of cinematic techniques, the internet, and the media, RACCNY hopes to reveal the problems related to Co-ops. They wish for government officials to respond and attempt to fix these setbacks. Consequently, if successful, RACCNY feels this project will assist in reinstating fairness to cooperative shareholders in the eye of the law.

RACCNY is a non-profit organization that attends to the Russian speaking community of New York. In addition to other activities, RACCNY seeks to aid owners of New York Cooperatives apartments, help them comprehend their entitlements as shareholders, and assist them in handling arguments. They also hold seminars and offer free legal advice to shareholders.