Category: Co-ops

Spot the culprit

15 May, 2009 (09:46) | Co-ops, Local issues, Local taxation, New York City, Real estate taxes | No comments

This is a whodunit. Somebody’s paying more, and it’s somebody else’s fault. Who’s the culprit?

We all live in this co-op, and one of us will be financially murdered

But first, let’s meet the victim(s), since what is a good juicy newspaper story (in this case, from the New York Times) without a victim?

I’m [...]

The discreet charm of the bourgeois school

13 April, 2009 (10:38) | Co-ops, Local issues, Local taxation, New York City, Real estate taxes | No comments

[Previous posts on local taxation include Assessment of affordable housing, Local taxation: cui bono?, Real estate taxes: basic budget algebra, The states of play, Who pays property taxes? – Ed.]
 
From the Unintentional Humor Department of the New York Times comes this What-are-we-going-to-DO-about-this? story about new parents who are shocked, shocked to discover that where they [...]

David Smith, 1918-2009

3 April, 2009 (10:00) | Biography, Co-ops, New York City, Rent control, Stuyvesant Town, Tenure | 1 comment

No, not your humble narrator – rather one of the many namesakes that we who have such a common name experience.  [I was once invited to attend a gathering of the members of the David Smith Society – no joke! – for whom there was only one qualification – to be named David Smith.  We [...]

The man who speaks for buildings

19 December, 2008 (09:29) | Architecture, Co-ops, New York City, Rehab, Rental | No comments

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 [...]