Monthly Archives: May 2017

Will blocking bridge access from Clinton help traffic?

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Currently there is a petition circulating asking the DOT to close the Clinton Street access to the Williamsburg Bridge, in an attempt to address the odious traffic problems.

In 2012, in response to the killing of a middle school student trying to cross Delancey at Clinton, the DOT made a bunch of changes to improve pedestrian safety on Delancey, including narrowing the distance needed to cross and extending the time available to cross.  They also banned left turns from southbound Essex to eastbound Delancey (forcing southbound cars to go down to Broome and over to Norfolk before turning onto Delancey), and they reopened the Clinton Street access to the bridge, which had been closed for many years.  The rationale given in DOT presentations for reopening Clinton was that it would reduce speeding and red-light running on Delancey, since previously cars waiting at the light at Norfolk would have a vehicle-free path ahead of them inviting them to gun it when the light turned green.

Those changes happened around the same time as a bunch of other things, including:

  • Unending construction on Houston,
  • Grand changing from 2 car lanes each way to 1 car lane and 1 bike lane each way, and getting traffic-calming medians
  • Clinton below Grand having its traffic lanes narrowed and bike lanes added
  • Tolls going up (in 2009, 2013, and 2017) on the tolled crossings

As soon as Clinton was reopened, traffic started backing up on Grand, sometimes even on the FDR.

In 2013-2014 the DOT tried to address the backups.  They made the green light at Clinton and Delancey longer so more cars could turn onto the bridge with each light.  They added back the second westbound car lane on Grand so that cars that didn’t want to turn onto the bridge at Clinton could bypass the cars that did want to turn.  They added signs on the southbound FDR indicating that Houston was an alternate route to the Williamsburg Bridge.  And those things DEFINITELY helped.

But in the last year or so traffic has gotten worse again.  I am not sure why, but suspect Essex Crossing construction has made traffic flow a little slower, and the March 2017 toll increase may have pushed a few more cars toward the free crossings.

It’s possible that closing the Clinton approach would help, as it would stretch the Grand Street traffic out a couple more blocks, and Norfolk still has two northbound lanes (when they’re not blocked by Essex Crossing construction) that allow a higher volume of cars to turn onto Delancey with each light vs. Clinton.  But I am skeptical, as I think it will primarily move the problem to Norfolk and reintroduce some of the speeding on Delancey.  It will also become dangerous to cross Grand on the west side of Clinton, as there will be many more cars turning left onto Grand from northbound Clinton to try to get to the bridge.

My view is that tolling the bridge is the only real solution.  With the MTA moving all their tolled crossings to cashless tolling, there are no real technical hurdles to doing that, but there are big political ones.  So stopgaps might include further improving the signage that tells drivers they can use Clinton orNorfolk to access the bridge (almost nobody uses Norfolk, even though at peak times it’s probably faster to bypass all the traffic in the right lane on Grand and just go to Norfolk), and adding traffic cops along Grand at peak times with a mandate to strictlyenforce red lights, turning from the wrong lane, driving in the bike lane, honking, etc.

Fortunately, the Community Board is focused on the issue and the DOT is currently studying it.  Only time will tell whether they will come up with a good solution or not.

Renaming Samuel Dickstein Plaza? Let’s call it Pitt Street

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Following is a slightly revised version of a letter the Seward Spark’s publisher sent to CB3 Transportation Chair (and SPC shareholder) Karen Blatt in 2014, in reference to a petition to rename Samuel Dickstein Plaza for Lilian Wald instead of Samuel Dickstein.   We are reposting this letter now in light of renewed publicity given to the Lilian Wald petition.

Dear Ms. Blatt,

I write regarding efforts to rename Samuel Dickstein Plaza and to request that whatever it be named, that “Pitt Street” be included in the official name and signage. As a resident of 264-266-268 East Broadway, which is located at the tangled confluence of Grand Street, Pitt Street, East Broadway and Montgomery Street, I am often frustrated trying to explain my building’s location to visitors and delivery people. Having a fifth street name involved (Samuel Dickstein Plaza) does not help. And if the two blocks of Samuel Dickstein Plaza were renamed to something entirely different, it would only compound the problem.

Site Plan from “The Story of Seward Park” by Abraham Kazan (1961)

Samuel Dickstein Plaza was constructed in the early 1960s (amid the urban renewal that redrew the neighborhood’s map) as an extension of Pitt Street below Grand. The original site plans for the Seward Park Cooperative show it as Pitt Street, and many maps today still show Pitt extending below Grand. This is logical since the street is a direct, colinear extension of Pitt from Grand to the intersection of Henry and Montgomery. Yet when the extension was officially named by the city in 1963, it was named exclusively Samuel Dickstein Plaza. Today, all the street signs between Grand and Henry say Samuel Dickstein Plaza (not Pitt).

Other streets in the neighborhood that carry honorary names (like Abraham Kazan Street and Bialystoker Place) still retain their historical names and corresponding signage (like Columbia and Willett).  In the case of Bialystoker/Willett, a portion of Willett was renamed exclusively Bialystoker Place in 1979, but to alleviate confusion the city backed off and in 1987 renamed the street again to be co-named Bialystoker Place/Willett Street.

I realize that it may not be possible to simply rename Samuel Dickstein Plaza to Pitt Street, since the building numbering on Pitt Street starts at Grand Street and runs north (1 Pitt Street, if it still existed, would be on the northwest corner of Grand and Pitt). But it would still ease navigation if Samuel Dickstein Plaza could be named Pitt Street South (like Park Avenue South, south of 1 Park Avenue at 32nd Street) or Pitt Street Extension (like Flatbush Avenue Extension, north of 1 Flatbush Avenue at Fulton Street) or something similar. And it would be perfectly fine with me to co-name the street in honor of Lilian Wald or even leave it co-named for Congressman Dickstein (treason notwithstanding). But including the phrase “Pitt Street” in the name and the signage to help people find their way around a complicated corner of Manhattan seems far more important than choosing which other dead person should join William Pitt, the First Earl of Chatham, in his cartographic glory.

Please include the phrase “Pitt Street” in any future name for Samuel Dickstein Plaza.

Reactions to the 2016 Financial Statements

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We read through the financial statements and have a few observations, with a hat tip to Marc F. of spcomm who beat us to the punch on many of these points (spcomm membership required):

The bad:

  • Our cash position remains bad.  While the disparity between operating cash and accounts payable isn’t nearly as bad as last year (when we had under $200k in cash and almost $3MM in outstanding payables), at the end of 2016 we still had more accounts payable than operating cash.  We also drew down our line of credit by $950k (to pay the public adjuster lawsuit settlement, which was reached in 2015 but paid in 2016) and appear to have used about $1.2MM in reserve funds during the course of 2016.  The coop is also no longer keeping a separate playroom account but has moved the playroom funds into the general operating account.
  • Property taxes continue their relentless march to the stratosphere, approaching $10MM and accounting for more than a third of our total expenditures.
  • Legal costs are up by almost a quarter million.  We assume this is primarily the result of the garage litigation, where five shareholders sued the co-op to try to invalidate the parking lease with Icon Parking.  The co-op’s motion to dismiss the case (and a motion to recover our fees from the plaintiffs in accordance with the proprietary lease) was fully submitted in September 2016 but the judge has not yet ruled.
  • Commercial arrears continue creeping back up at about $100k per year since the massive write-offs of 2014.

The good:

  • Operating, repair, and maintenance expenses are down, particularly steam and gas heat, water and sewer charges, maintenance materials and supplies, plumbing and heating, window repair, and landscaping.
  • As promised in last year’s financials, the Icon contract resulted in Garage revenue going up by almost $100k.  There is a possibility for that number to increase further if enough shareholders are added to the parking roster.
  • Sublet fees are up almost $100k.  This despite oft-repeated false claims by certain shareholders that the Board “lowered” sublet fees.
  • Flip tax reached a record high of almost $6.5MM, up $2.2MM over last year.  We expect strong flip tax collections again in 2017, but probably not this high.

Prognosis:

  • With property taxes continuing to go up and some major capital repairs on the horizon stemming from the discovery of 60-year-old construction defects in some of the 18th floor terraces, we don’t expect to see break from maintenance hikes in the foreseeable future.
  • That said, with the air rights proposal on the table, and (even if we don’t sell air rights) the possibility of refinancing our mortgage in the next year or two, the Board may be able to finance some of the long-term expenses and keep maintenance increases to a minimum.  This already appears to be the mindset of the Board, as they recently passed a 1.5% maintenance increase to go into effect for fiscal 2018 as part of the N+1 budgeting process.

2017 Board Candidates

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This year seven candidates are vying for four open seats on the Seward Park Cooperative Board of Directors. The candidates are:

#1 – Arnold Sandler
#2 – Darcey Gerstein
#3 – Carol Anastasio
#4 – Karen Suss Wolfson
#5 – David Pearson
#6 – Norma Ramirez
#7 – Stanley Friedland

Darcey, Karen, and Norma are all incumbents seeking reelection.  The fourth seat is being vacated by Harold Aranoff, who served for six years.   Of the other candidates, both Carol and Stanley previously served on the Board.  Arnold ran last year, and David is brand new to Seward Park elections.

The election will be held on June 14, 2017.

On the proposed Shareholders Association

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I attended last night’s inaugural meeting of Eric M.’s shareholders’ association.   Roughly 75 people were there at any given time.  About a third of the meeting was devoted to Eric talking about himself.  About half was a discussion of air rights related concerns.  And the remainder (when not getting sidetracked by miscellaneous issues) was about the proposed shareholders’ association itself.

Some observations:

Eric likes alternative facts almost as much as Trump.  Eric is a knowledgeable guy who has put a lot of work into trying to help the coop.  But accuracy and truthfulness are not high priorities in his writing or speaking.  He frequently repeats statements that could generously be referred to as misleading (or less generously as lies).  The anonymous anti-Eric blog “Truth at Seward Park” recently published a fact check of Eric’s latest Gazette flier.  Almost every misleading statement in that fact check was repeated at the meeting.  Various shareholders (including me) attempted to correct the record a few times, but were often shouted down.

Nobody knows what the shareholders’ association is.  There were very mixed messages about the shareholders’ association’s purpose.  Eric spoke at length in vague terms about how it would be a “hyperdemocratic” way for the shareholders to engage in Seward Park politics year-round, where everybody would be welcome.  But he also made it sound like a political party and lobbying group that would try to push the Board toward certain policy goals, the first of which is to strike down any air rights deal.  The biggest cheer of the night was in response to a shareholder’s hope that the association would “stick it to the Board” (as if this were a traditional tenants’ association facing off against a greedy landlord, as opposed to a cooperative owned by the very shareholders sitting in the room).  Meanwhile, for anyone wishing to engage more in coop politics and policy, you are always welcome to submit comments (or complete posts) to the Seward Spark, and the spcomm and LESOnline forums frequently have lively online discussions about coop issues.

There is a dearth of air rights information available.   Many shareholders came to discuss the air rights deal, but the leaders of the meeting did not appear to have prepared anything on the subject other than an anti-sale petition, and were surprisingly unknowledgeable about the terms of the deal and the process of the shareholder vote.  Many valid concerns were raised about shadows and views, sharing open spaces, pollution, garbage collection, etc.  Having researched many of these subjects myself, I stepped in to try to answer as many questions as I could, and appreciate being given the opportunity to do so.  But it is clear that the Board needs to get moving with more complete and authoritative information about the deal and more opportunities for shareholders to get their questions answered.