The man who speaks for buildings
Because buildings are immobile, massive, and sturdily built, we have the natural but bad habit of thinking them immutable and immortal – mute elephants, as it were. Taking them for granted, we can do damage with incremental changes that we make thoughtlessly, presuming such changes can make no difference.
Who then speaks for buildings? Every now and then, one can find such a pure, distilled advocate for the property, in an unlikely guise, as revealed in this little New York Times profile:
NO NONSENSE The austere office of Elliott Glass belies his position as the arbiter of co-op renovations at hundreds of apartment buildings that hire him.
ELLIOTT GLASS answers the door of his office dressed in cuff links and tie, an odd-seeming formality since he is alone in the five-room office suite. Yes, the sign on the office door at
He has no secretary or associates, no decorations on the wall. For that matter, his office has no Web site, e-mail address or even a computer — especially odd for a modern architect. Mr. Glass, who is 73, does have a telephone, but is rueful about it. He deals with co-ops, and “the shareholders can find you if you are listed,” he said sadly.
Virtually unique to New York City, co-ops are living clubs that can set any rules they wish – unlike condos where an owner has largely untrammeled right to rearrange his or her internal space, as spelled out in the condo documents.
But the austere, even stubborn, old-fashioned utilitarianism of his office belies his position in the
Well, okay, in an emergency …
As we saw in De Soto’s dryer, plumbing and in-home laundry facilities are no small matter in high-rise apartments.
Mr. Glass is perhaps the most prominent reviewing architect in the city. Hundreds of apartment buildings in
“You know the album cover for the original ‘My Fair Lady’?” asked Erika Belsey, whose firm, Belsey & Mahla Architects, specializes in high-end residential renovations. “Eliza’s the marionette, being manipulated by Henry Higgins, being manipulated by God? That’s Elliott Glass: he’s the god behind the co-op boards, controlling your renovation.”
In Hirschfeld’s drawing, God was Bernard Shaw, which would no doubt have pleased the old narcissist immensely
“When he says you can’t put your washing machine where you want it, forget your distinguished position as editor in chief, CEO or university president,” she continued. “You do what he says — no questions asked.”
Mr. Glass plays down his power, pointing out that ultimately the co-op boards requesting his services make the final decisions based on the reports he writes.
As the truly independent advisor – the Delphic oracle of zoning and building approval – Mr. Glass has a valuable position, one that a co-op board would be unlikely to over-rule. He is truly disinterested, and hence cannot possibly be accused of having played internal building politics.
Does your ceiling meet code, Michelangelo?
But then, as he admits, they rarely disagree with his conclusions. That’s because he is extremely knowledgeable and accurate, said Paul Gottsegen, the director of property management at the Halstead Management Company, which oversees 80 buildings. “When challenged, I don’t think he has ever been wrong on interpretations of the building codes, which are byzantine.”
Evidently Mr. Glass is the Lord Palmerston – the only living person who can claim to understand a particular issue, however narrow – of NYC building codes. That is valuable, and is achieved only by a lifetime’s careful study.
But code — while Mr. Glass’s strong suit — is not his only concern. He also considers the building’s best interest, a subject matter open to interpretation.
For this, I admire him, because so few advocates think long term of the building’s physical ecosystem – its network of structural members, piping, electrical systems, and uses. Like Tim Padfield, he’s an expert’s expert, and like the best experts, he always separates his technical from his editorial conclusions.
In his reports, Mr. Glass is careful to delineate which concern he is addressing.
While board members and managing agents come and go, Mr. Glass has been in business for decades. In his mind, and in his 60 black metal file cabinets, he has meticulously cataloged renovation histories.
He often knows more than residents do about their co-ops’ policies on arcane matters that become relevant only occasionally — say, whether they will allow stairways between combined apartments.
Beyond simply helping clients do tasks, experts (like Recap and AHI) provide two other types of value:
1. Cumulative expertise applied to each task. Many are the tasks or problems we solve only once or twice in our lives. These are natural magnets for expertise; someone who’s seen dozens and hundreds of variations of the problem confronting you will not only do it quicker, he’ll do it better and more surely.
I never forget a case I’ve handled
2. Institutional memory. Once you have accomplished that difficult task, you tend to forget all about it. So do the other parties. If a dispute later arises, or if a subsequent decision is required, you’re lost. In several of the claims litigation matters with which I’ve been involved, Recap’s files have been a principal evidentiary source, simply because we have kept them, we know what is in them, and we can recover it upon request.
Steven Harris, the founding member of an architectural firm, estimates that he has worked on 25 apartments with Mr. Glass over the years.
“He is a kind of treasure in a kind of antediluvian way,” Mr. Harris said. “You can ask about the building; he remembers 30 years ago. With other building architects, there is no institutional history.”
I pride myself on being able to rattle off the facts about a complicated preservation transaction my company did fifteen years ago; aside from being a parlor trick, it reminds me that each deal was and remains unique.
It’s filed just over here
Mr. Glass sees all of his decisions as based in reason even when not based in building code.
Laws are devices to produce outcomes. Construction codes are rules designed to protect the building. It’s delightful to encounter someone else who thinks as we do that the ultimate goal is to protect the property’s health.
Take the current fad for stoves with pot-filler faucets, for example. He is against them. Not just because it seems silly to him that someone could not walk across a kitchen to fill a pot under a sink, but because a water faucet without a drain under it seems like an invitation for water damage.
Sometimes, his reasoning is broader. Mr. Glass is hesitant to allow people to expand bathrooms over other people’s bedrooms. The issue is not only building wet over dry, which could lead to a disastrous leak. He is also thinking about noise. “A leak happens once, and it is terrible,” he reasons, “but midnight flushing is for the rest of your life.”
As a long-time proponent of quiet enjoyment, I like that motto: Midnight flushing is the rest of your life. Quiet
He adds, “Noise is the issue buildings receive complaints about the most.”
Noise is the second least blockable intrusion; only odor is worse.
Patrons and architects routinely ask to move main gas lines, steam lines and water lines so that they can expand kitchens — a move allowed by code. Yet routinely they are denied by Mr. Glass and the buildings who employ him.
Again, Mr. Glass isn’t the ultimate arbiter, but his disinterested integrity makes him credible. He is not turning you down because he thinks your taste atrocious or your decoration flamboyant; he is turning you down solely to protect the common asset, the property whose exoskeleton is essential to everyone’s well-being.
As it turns out, Mr. Glass was the reviewing architect for the co-op in the lawsuit in the late 1980s that set the precedent on this.
In Levandusky v. the One Fifth Avenue Apartment Corporation — a highly cited precedent in co-op litigation — the defendant claimed that he had the right to move a steam riser to expand his kitchen, and the building claimed the right to have a stop-work order to prevent the alteration.
The New York Court of Appeals eventually made the tenant move the pipe back, and the case has become cited because it legitimized a board’s right to act within the building without judicial interference.
If every tenant moved the risers, he observes, the systems would be far less efficient.
Defending the property, defending the common interest. Admirable.
In the lawsuit, the defendant said that Mr. Glass had given him oral approval for the move. Mr. Glass, however, wants everyone to know that he gives oral approval for nothing.
“I stick my neck out for nobody”
Like
All his recommendations are in reports, neatly and swiftly typed on his electric I.B.M. typewriter.
Like the buildings he defends, Mr. Glass is immovable, and would be unreachable if he could be:
I don’t take kindly to being leaned on
He is alone in the office and prefers it that way. Communications can be vexing. “If I had a computer,” he said, “they’d bombard me with e-mail.” He means co-op shareholders.
“Just recently I got a call from a guy who was angry because he insisted a neighbor did the same amount of work and didn’t have to get approval.” he said. “But I looked it up and sure enough the neighbor had done a lot of work, but he hadn’t moved any walls so he didn’t need approval.”
Mr. Glass shakes his head.
So what did the angry guy do? “Nothing he could do,” Mr. Glass said. “When you are right, you are right.”
My kind of expert.
Sometimes you have to take it easy
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