Saturday, August 23, 2008

 

Another Curiosity Below Houston Street : Serge Hoyda's 180 Ludlow Street and the Ludlow ...


As developer Serge Hoyda's 180 Ludlow street is poured skyward it is covering up the fenestration in the south wall of the large rental ,The Ludlow , next door. A good many windows have already been covered up by this new building . Click on the image and take a look at the area above the building under construction .
Now we know from working with the building code over the years that one can not place windows or other openings such as vents for HVAC ( heating ,ventilating and air conditioning equipment ) in a wall that is on a lot line unless you own the air rights to that space next door .
Why is it then that we see this situation pictured above : the Ludlow owner built windows into the south wall of their building even though the wall was on a lot line . This loss of fenestration has to have created difficulties with the interior program of the Ludlow .Its curious that this all got past DOB inspections .

Friday, August 22, 2008

 

A Curiosity Below Houston Street : 180 Orchard Street....







Today 180 Orchard street was a stark , grey deserted building but for a few hard-hatted workmen that appeared to be doing some DOB required "house-keeping " . No other work was in process here on this beginning of a buildding . It has taken 3 to 4 years to demolish the previous buildings , to dig the hole in the ground , to drive piles, to do under-pinning work and pour 3 floors worth of concrete structure . There is a lot of capital just sitting here doing nothing but generate financing charges . All work has been stopped on this building by the NYC Department of Buildings .
According to the NYC DOB property profile for this building a stopwork order was placed on this structure with the intent to revoke permit #104297850 on 6 June 2008 . This permit according to the DOB was for all architectural , mechanical and structural plans . The architect of record is Issac and Stern Architects , the structural engineer of record is Robert Silman Associates and the mechanical engineer of record is GC Eng & Associates .The DOB property profile shows no clear reason for the intent to revoke . Why the DOB silence here ?
There was also noted in this stopwork order a violation for the unlawful and unsafe operation of a truck boom crane and a violation for construction debris falling to the street .
The stopwork order was later changed to allow workers to remove 3rd floor formwork , place shores to support the 3rd floor and to remove refuse and construction debris as well as make the site generally safe .
According to the city register a $ 12,500,000 was recently provided by the New York Community Bank . More recently according to the city register the owner of the building , LES Realty , signed a sundry agreement with the Dime Savings Bank of Williamsburg .
We have no idea of what is going on here ; there are of course all manner of rumors floating around , none of which are we able to confirm . All very curious .




Tuesday, August 19, 2008

 

Day Two at Our Doorstep and the Slactivists come by and Protest ....






Fire-hydrant , garbage cans and "Green-and-Whites"




The faux trash was back at our doorstep today . We had to yell at people to get it moved . We made a scene as often as we could .If you are nice to these people they just keep coming back to your block ;year after year after....
Today as is the case almost every day , Mayor Mike was busy pimping-out an East Village neighborhood : our block on 4th street. There is a lot of rhetoric about all the jobs this creates but thats just bullshit . Talk to a real economist and they'll tell you the same :bullshit . This film and television crap is just as it is with the Mayors bullshit water-fall : advertising .
Its all about advertising NYC and especially the East Village to the rest of the world . The theme park-ification of this neighborhood and this city depends on this advertising to bring in lots of fools to be seperated from their money . This all helps raise property values ... especially commercial property values . .It brings more NYU students too , helping NYU to keep expanding and taking more and more of downton NYC. . Those who own big commercial property make lots more money as they theme park our city--it helps them to more effectively maximize their asset performance -- and these are the people that Mayor Mike intends to assist and support in their bloodsucking acquisitive enterprise.

We are not against economic enterprise , developement or even movie and television production companies per se but when these activities harm the people and their neighborhoods just to provide very considerable gain for an elite few we have to protest , violently if necessary .They have no right to take over the East Village neighborhoods as they do . Walk in the neighborhood on any day and you will usually be able find a production crew overwhelming a block and its people .

This last week some of our neighbors were threatened by some of this HBO production company's thugs because they complained about what the production company was doing to the street .

This HBO production company will again be shooting tomorrow , on 4th between A and B , during the day starting at 7 am . It looks like the "Slactivists" will be at the movie-set here on 4th st. at mid-day . Come by too and let this production company know how you feel about them and others like them and their constant presence in the East Village . Bring strobes and noise makers and have some fun .

If you don't want this crap in your neighborhood protest loudly and vigorously . Set strobe lights --even the little bicycle strobes will work --in your windows and turn them on . Purchase a small air horn with a little can of compressed air . When they start to shoot start strobing and blasting your horn out your window . Be nasty and really really ugly to all of them .Hurt their feelings if you don't mind doing that sort of thing . Remember none of them have any authority to tell you what to do ;you can walk where you want whenever you want . Only a police officer can tell you what to do on the street . If you are nice to them and if you take their money they will just return . This is war , act like it .
You can call the Mayors Office of Film and Television at 212-489-6710 but likely you will be sent to someone's voicemail . We have yet to get a response from a live person from Mayor Mike's favorite little agency .
Remember that its your neighborhood not theirs ; Mayor Mike has no right to pimp your neighborhood to help make the plutocratic elite , his friends , in this city richer than they already are .










Monday, August 18, 2008

 

Look at What We Found on Our Doorstep ....


An HBO production company is on 4th street to shoot more crap . They have been re-arranging the appearance of the neighborhood to suit their needs . Today they added some garbage to the street and then went home leaving a mess to be dealt with over-night by those who live on 4th street . They will shoot tomorrow . ...or maybe the next day ,or the next day . No one knows for sure but in the meantime they seem to believe that they own 4th street .

When we went to exit our residence today we found a pile of garbage and garbage cans strewn about our front step blocking our exit . The bulkhead door to the basement which we use to get to the boiler and electrical system was also completely covered with garbage and garbage cans rendering it un-openable .

This garbage was strewn about up and down 4th street sometime during the late morning Monday . They even went so far as to place a bottomless garbage can around a fire hydrant and left it there ; clearly an illegal action .The production company left the residents with all this crap until they return to shoot Wednesday or Tuesday .

In the picture above we have removed the garbage from in front of our door with a gate and placed it behind the camera at the curb . The crap that was on top of the cellar door can be seen on the right where we pushed it to be able to open the cellar door .

This is just another example of the absolute indifference of these production companies and their individual staff members to the people that live in this neighborhood .This is our home , not just a movie set for them to play with as they will .










Sunday, August 17, 2008

 

Pandamonium in Union Square Park Saturday Night ...








A little bit past 8 pm the pandas began appearing in the south end of Union Square Park . The music began a little later and the crowd of white-and-black masked partiers started moving to the rythmic sounds coming from their boom-boxes . With a low-power FM panda run transmitter broadcasting the official party tunes , all had tuned-in to this transmitter's frequency , 88.7 FM . This particular frequency was once a favorite in the old East Village of yore having been the number to tune to , to hear the local anarchic and un-lawful pirate radio station know as "Steal This Radio" .
The party continued in USP for a while but just before 9pm slithered and girated down the hole to party-on riding the L-train to Brooklyn .
We didn't go along to Brooklyn , a big mistake , so we did not see with our own eyes what happened with all the partying pandas later in the evening . Someone who did go along to Brooklyn though told us all about what he saw during the remainder of the anarchic panda partying evening .
After going down the hole in USP , the pandas mounted several cars of the L-train and danced and partied to their 88.7 provided sounds all the way under the river to Brooklyn .
In Brooklyn , out of the hole the pandas danced heading down a brooklyn street ...and yes the free beer was right there as promised , iced -down in buckets placed conveniently along the way .
The pandas , beers in paws , found a spot for an un-announced block-party on an unknown--our source was a little under the influence of too much of that free beer and did not remember any street names--brooklyn street . The pandas listened to their pirate FM , drank , danced and partied for , we were told , an hour . Of course all good things come to and end and its usually the same folks that end them .
A bright light accompanied by a whop-whop-whop sound appeared in the sky directly above the pandas as a wall of cops marched down the street . The pandas dispersed disappearing into the dark Brooklyn night .








 

RaceRaceRace



 

Accidental Discovery



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