Letter to the Editor: (The author prefers remaining anonymous due to the retaliatory practices of the landlord.)
Instead of a cooperative relationship with the tenants, building management at Roosevelt Landings continues to have an antagonistic relationship. Instead of keeping the hallways clean, they would rather blame the residents.
Eastwood was built to be economically diverse and now they are using 1984 tactics to slowly but surely evict lower-income residents.
More Money? Pushy Landlord? Rental Assistance Answers Here
I have personally witnessed the senior lawyer for the landlord state to a lower-income resident in housing court, “The landlord does not want your kind here anymore.”
Construction continues throughout the building as so many tenants have left. This week’s construction in a neighboring apartment knocked the supplies out of my medicine cabinet and paintings off my walls.
Water is turned off frequently.
We get weekly notices not to walk our dogs on Main Street, which I believe is a New York City public sidewalk, but allow dogs only on the Queens side on the East Promenade. However, the elevator at the back closes in the evening so access is limited.
…the sidewalks are filthy…
The landlord seems intent on pushing out the elderly and Black residents while recruiting young Chinese students. The landlord implores us to be neighborly, and yet has destroyed the essence of our neighborhood.
The landlord has systematically used what the New York Times refers to as the “Eviction Machine” to force residents to give up their sticky vouchers in place of market rate leases, and then forces them out when they cannot afford it.
Frequently workers in the building ask to use our bathroom as the landlord seemingly does not even offer this basic necessity to people working here. We have no shoes policy in our home, but the construction workers walk in with their boots and leave the bathroom in a mess. We clean it up gladly because it is not their fault they don’t have access to a toilet when nature calls.
They have placed rat poison all up and down the Queen’s side walkway with no signage, endangering all of the dogs walking there… but they place signs everywhere to clean up dog poop. The dog poop signs are just 8 1/2 x 11 paper taped up. They immediately streak and are ruined by rain, becoming eyesores.
Meanwhile, pigeon droppings are everywhere and the sidewalks are filthy and smell.
A very demoralizing atmosphere…
All of this could possibly be forgiven if the landlord were friendly. But if the landlord wants to be antagonistic, all bets are off.
Instead of having a presence in the hallways cleaning or door stations, they install cameras. This does not support us but dangers us.
We used to have the hallways cleaned daily. Now it seems they are clean twice a month, literally.
The maintenance staff do nothing but complain about management to the residents, making it a very demoralizing atmosphere.
Disclaimer: The opinions in this letter to the editor are those of the writer and not those of the Roosevelt Island Daily or its editor or publisher.
Unequal Bargains
On June 18, the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation’s Real Estate Development Advisory Committee gathered to discuss ground leases, the master retail lease, and the ten additional years being offered under the Island’s master lease. Howard L. Polivy, the committee’s chair, opened the meeting as a longtime host shows guests through a familiar house, pointing out the furniture as if it had never moved an inch.
