Friday, June 25, 2010
Beautiful ex- Metropolitan Life properties, going broke
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
The recent news of the failure of Metropolitan Life’s last of a series of attempts to create socially beneficial mass urban renewal projects that would benefit the residence starved post WWII families and provide a good revenue stream for the insurance reserves makes one reflect on the old saws of Josef Stalin, that you cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs, and Oscar Wilde, that no good deed goes unpunished. The owners of the Parkmerced apartment complex in San Francisco will default on their $550 mortgage in a few months,
Stuyvesant Town was not the first urban renewal project inspired by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia (1933-45) and completed by Met Life under President Frederick Hudson Ecker (1867-1964). Met planned Parkchester in 1938 when they purchased the 129 acres of a former Christian Brothers home and school for wayward boys, and turned it into 12,271 dwelling units in four blocks of seven to thirteen story buildings, including a major shopping center of over 100 stores, among them the first Macy’s branch outside of Herald Square, also a movie complex, a bowling alley and four major restaurants. Initially planned for middle class tenants, it was opened up by anti-discrimination lawsuits, and eventually turned multi-racial. In 1968 the Met sold it to the Helmsley-Spears organization, for $80 million; it was partially converted to condominiums.
The story of ST/PCV is well known here. The former Gas House District between 14th and 27th Streets to the River, named for the gas tanks emitting noxious odors over n the entire East Side it was a slum area and the home of the notorious Gas House Gang, Partially cleaned up in early 1900s, it became one of the renewal targets of Commissioner Robert Moses. Properties were condemned, inhabitants displaced elsewhere and churches, residential and commercial buildings razed About 80 acres were turned into the parkland development site of SP/PCV with 11,227 dwelling units in 110 high risers, loosely spaced on a maintained park property, an open-air luxury unheard of in tight Manhattan. It was originally made available for WWII veterans and FBI agents. The development started in 1943 and first tenants moved in August 1, 1947 (Town and Village, the first newspaper to serve this small sub city, came soon thereafter and has uninterruptedly maintained its service since then).
Since inception, Met has had to answer to problems of discrimination (now largely settled) and rent control.
The current form of rent control and rent maintenance, originally started in NYC after WWI, has been mainly powered by laws passed in 1943, with administration transferred to state government in 1950. The SY/PCV Tenants Association has been a powerful resource in maintaining tenant protection legislation in NYS.
Following the ST/PCV success, Met Life in the 1940s developed Riverton Houses in Harlem, 1,200 units, nearly all rent controlled, which they sold to Lawrence Gluck of Stellar Management and the Rockpoint Group in 2006. Since rentals did not pay, Gluck soon refinanced $250 million, refurbishing elevators, lobbies and gardens, and took some of the money as profits, hoping to convert much of the property, now luxury rated, to market rate rentals. They only succeeded with 10% conversions, and Riverton has been in foreclosure since March 2010 after defaulting on the $250 million in loans
Also in 2006, the ST/PCV property was bought by Tishman Speyer Realty and Black-Rock Properties for $5.4 billion, the largest purchase ever of a single-property holding... The Tishman group also had a business plan to convert many apartments to market rate, and to make them luxurious by modernizing the access areas, adding shiny community lounges and new plantings, but it did not work. There was also the problem of 4,350 illegal rent decontrol cases in buildings constructed with tax relief. The Tishman group in 2009 was unable to meet its debt obligations, and the property is in foreclosure, with a SY/PCV TA based unit strongly contending for an opportunity to purchase their homes’ complex.
The Parkmerced apartment complex is a 3,200 rent-stabilized unit development, largest such in the SF area, built in the 1944-52period. with 11 buildings of 13 stories and 1.683 apartments; also 1538 two-story townhouses. It was sold to the Helmsley group for $40 million in 1970 and ended with the Stellar/Rockport investors in 2004. They are defaulting on a $550 million in senior debt and $52 in secondary loans, much of it held by Calpers, the huge California civil service employee union pension trust. Calpers also held $500 in ST/PCV debt.
All these Met-developed properties were deemed to be risk free winners by conservative investors, and their defaults are causing huge stress in the pension trust market, sources of pensions for government retirees.
Governments nationwide have mismanaged their employee pensions and pension trust funds. Now we get news from all over, NYCPD included, how cops, firemen and others with retirements available after 20 years of service have managed to pile up overtime in final years to drive up the average pay, retiring in their early forties with pensions higher than their actual fulltime pay, This is not Greece, fellow citizens, this is our own New York City, and Detroit, historic homes of the trade union movement
Meanwhile in 2010 all states and many municipalities in the US are exceeding their mandated budgets for the current year by $300 billion, of which New York State’s deficit makes up $7.4 billion, causing teacher layoffs, work-week shortenings and closings of government offices, This whole tragedy is a lot more serious than the “sameold sameold” NYS legislature’s disfunctionality that we have taken for granted in the past years, with the state surviving by governments cashing fake savings on programs, and the sale/leaseback of government buildings. There’s real trouble in River City, and beyond.
Wally thanks NYTimes and internet sources
The recent news of the failure of Metropolitan Life’s last of a series of attempts to create socially beneficial mass urban renewal projects that would benefit the residence starved post WWII families and provide a good revenue stream for the insurance reserves makes one reflect on the old saws of Josef Stalin, that you cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs, and Oscar Wilde, that no good deed goes unpunished. The owners of the Parkmerced apartment complex in San Francisco will default on their $550 mortgage in a few months,
Stuyvesant Town was not the first urban renewal project inspired by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia (1933-45) and completed by Met Life under President Frederick Hudson Ecker (1867-1964). Met planned Parkchester in 1938 when they purchased the 129 acres of a former Christian Brothers home and school for wayward boys, and turned it into 12,271 dwelling units in four blocks of seven to thirteen story buildings, including a major shopping center of over 100 stores, among them the first Macy’s branch outside of Herald Square, also a movie complex, a bowling alley and four major restaurants. Initially planned for middle class tenants, it was opened up by anti-discrimination lawsuits, and eventually turned multi-racial. In 1968 the Met sold it to the Helmsley-Spears organization, for $80 million; it was partially converted to condominiums.
The story of ST/PCV is well known here. The former Gas House District between 14th and 27th Streets to the River, named for the gas tanks emitting noxious odors over n the entire East Side it was a slum area and the home of the notorious Gas House Gang, Partially cleaned up in early 1900s, it became one of the renewal targets of Commissioner Robert Moses. Properties were condemned, inhabitants displaced elsewhere and churches, residential and commercial buildings razed About 80 acres were turned into the parkland development site of SP/PCV with 11,227 dwelling units in 110 high risers, loosely spaced on a maintained park property, an open-air luxury unheard of in tight Manhattan. It was originally made available for WWII veterans and FBI agents. The development started in 1943 and first tenants moved in August 1, 1947 (Town and Village, the first newspaper to serve this small sub city, came soon thereafter and has uninterruptedly maintained its service since then).
Since inception, Met has had to answer to problems of discrimination (now largely settled) and rent control.
The current form of rent control and rent maintenance, originally started in NYC after WWI, has been mainly powered by laws passed in 1943, with administration transferred to state government in 1950. The SY/PCV Tenants Association has been a powerful resource in maintaining tenant protection legislation in NYS.
Following the ST/PCV success, Met Life in the 1940s developed Riverton Houses in Harlem, 1,200 units, nearly all rent controlled, which they sold to Lawrence Gluck of Stellar Management and the Rockpoint Group in 2006. Since rentals did not pay, Gluck soon refinanced $250 million, refurbishing elevators, lobbies and gardens, and took some of the money as profits, hoping to convert much of the property, now luxury rated, to market rate rentals. They only succeeded with 10% conversions, and Riverton has been in foreclosure since March 2010 after defaulting on the $250 million in loans
Also in 2006, the ST/PCV property was bought by Tishman Speyer Realty and Black-Rock Properties for $5.4 billion, the largest purchase ever of a single-property holding... The Tishman group also had a business plan to convert many apartments to market rate, and to make them luxurious by modernizing the access areas, adding shiny community lounges and new plantings, but it did not work. There was also the problem of 4,350 illegal rent decontrol cases in buildings constructed with tax relief. The Tishman group in 2009 was unable to meet its debt obligations, and the property is in foreclosure, with a SY/PCV TA based unit strongly contending for an opportunity to purchase their homes’ complex.
The Parkmerced apartment complex is a 3,200 rent-stabilized unit development, largest such in the SF area, built in the 1944-52period. with 11 buildings of 13 stories and 1.683 apartments; also 1538 two-story townhouses. It was sold to the Helmsley group for $40 million in 1970 and ended with the Stellar/Rockport investors in 2004. They are defaulting on a $550 million in senior debt and $52 in secondary loans, much of it held by Calpers, the huge California civil service employee union pension trust. Calpers also held $500 in ST/PCV debt.
All these Met-developed properties were deemed to be risk free winners by conservative investors, and their defaults are causing huge stress in the pension trust market, sources of pensions for government retirees.
Governments nationwide have mismanaged their employee pensions and pension trust funds. Now we get news from all over, NYCPD included, how cops, firemen and others with retirements available after 20 years of service have managed to pile up overtime in final years to drive up the average pay, retiring in their early forties with pensions higher than their actual fulltime pay, This is not Greece, fellow citizens, this is our own New York City, and Detroit, historic homes of the trade union movement
Meanwhile in 2010 all states and many municipalities in the US are exceeding their mandated budgets for the current year by $300 billion, of which New York State’s deficit makes up $7.4 billion, causing teacher layoffs, work-week shortenings and closings of government offices, This whole tragedy is a lot more serious than the “sameold sameold” NYS legislature’s disfunctionality that we have taken for granted in the past years, with the state surviving by governments cashing fake savings on programs, and the sale/leaseback of government buildings. There’s real trouble in River City, and beyond.
Wally thanks NYTimes and internet sources
Saturday, June 19, 2010
You cannot get a baby in a month by making nine women pregnant, by Dr. Paranoia
This saying,"you cannot get a baby in a month by making nine women pregnant," often attributed to Dr. Paranoia, a contributor to Loooking Ahead, acttually come from a 1985 management consortium meeting led by Miervaldis C. Dobelis, then a project officer at Guardian Life Insurence Company. Dobelis explained that a project management technique for expediting progress is wastefyl, and the "mongolian hordes" approach loses traction by having too many people to control and tokeep abteast of project conclusions.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
NPR admirer makes a strange confessionation
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
In these days of bad political news, environment collapses and low forward movement on the jobs front, I have given up on being glued on CNN and listening to much of NPR, my news favorite. I will watch the old Law and Order; the new versions are bizarre and depressive; there are no funny comedies on TV and in movies (getting bored with old British series’ repeats). Modern mystery novels are equally depressing; I often close them midway, when a “feelbad” conclusion starts looming. Even the “Robin-Hood” heroes of writers as Robert B. Parker and John D. MacDonald’s Spencer and Travis McGee, who follow the standard that the good will prevail, no matter how illegally the result is accomplished, do not always fit the “feelgood” reading bill. Of the recent crop, Alexander McCall Smith and his tales of Mma Precious Ramotswe, of the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency in Botswana are the best, although considered by the fans of the hardboiled as too “girlie.” If girlie writing fits the bill, I will buy it, and will include Lisa Scottoline’s books about the plucky Italian lady lawyers of the Rosato firm, and maybe, Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone series.
But back to the theme. This article was going to be about my devotion to Public Radio, at least two of its stations.
My first NPR love has always been WNYC, particularly the two-hour discussion programs held from 10AM to 2PM by Brian Lehrer and Leonard Lopate, Brian on local politics and education, while Lennie expands to literature, movies, music and even sports, a nice person. I remember him coming to Union Square, on a Saturday years ago, to talk to the Greenmarket people, but willing to chat about anything. When I called my dearest to tell of the encounter, she asked me to beg him to wait. When I told him that it would take 20 minutes, he said it was no problem, and they had a long chat about his predecessors, Marty the railroad man (write to ally@ix.netcom.com if you remember the full name) and Pegeen Fitzgerald and her cats. Those two shows should have wider distribution; we cannot hear them at our shack in the woods, 40 miles south of Albany.
Which brings me to the other topic, WAMC Northeast Public Radio, and the shocking revelation that for upbeat mood and feelgood emanations WAMC’ s fundraisers, in my book, are better entertainment than most radio fun programs, Garrison Keeler and the Car Boys not included. It seems to be all due to a diminutive dynamo of energy, Professor Alan Chartock, who founded the station chain (there are some 20 outlets in the tri-state area, NY, MA CT, and listeners in four more. It all started when Alan (Dr. Chartock, Professor Emeritus at the University in Albany, executive producer of the Legislative Report newspaper, and author of two weekly syndicated columns), helped an MD raise $5K he owed the financially pressed Albany Medical College to pay for electricity.
The professor started the fundraising technique of asking listeners for money, and eventually the college (AMC) turned over the station to him and the network spread, and spread.
Around June 1, early in the morning , we caught the fundraiser, with Alan proclaiming in effect, civilization will not be lost because WAMC will save it, and to call 1-800 323 9262. The storytelling began how the big radio stations with their canned programs are just waiting for the NPR stations to fail, so that they can swallow up the desirable wavelengths for commercial broadcasts of canned national messages. But we will not let them do that to a station that provides needed daily local condition reports. A call on our consciences was not all Alan offered; all donors were assured of valuable gifts from supporters, starting with a six CD set of Pete Seeger’s music, and when that ran low, recordings and interviews with Arlo Guthrie and Tommy Smothers. All this programming was interspersed with Alan’s calls on his telephone volunteers to keep the lines open, and threats of what seemed to be waterboarding, and other bad-cop imagery, and offers to listeners that he will play yodel music until they loosen their purses, and drumtolls by volunteers when particularly good contributors or matched fund donor offers came in. Donor names and locales are announced, unless they choose to remain anonymous.
As days rolled on, the tempo never dropped. Gifts changed, Tanglewood opening night tickets, Mahler’s 2nd, conducted by James Lewine, for the lawn (almost unlimited space but still a great experience, weather permitting) turned into a James Taylor concert, then $100 tickers for a John Pizzarelli concert at the Linda, WAMC’s own concert hall, a lottery for two days and nights of upscale treatment at the Kripalu health colony in the Berkshires, worth thousands.
Viewing objectively, it is salesmanship, but with a huge difference. You are not buying concrete objects, how to make money books nor God’s mercy, from canned presentations. You are responding to a palpable community pressure, you are buying peace of mind, participating in a communal involvement for community benefit, you feel good. Obstacles are announced, but no hatred is preached, only “we shall overcome,” and you are part of something beneficial for all. On Sunday the 13th of June, when Alan made his goal, $800K, and they played “America the Beautiful,” the old Kate Smith version, with the repeat at slow tempo, with low drum rolls in background, it felt like a great national victory that we were a part of.
The Chartock Fundraiser technique may nor be suitable for the huge WNYC which depends on foundations, but it would work in smaller locations. NPR guys, please take notes.
In these days of bad political news, environment collapses and low forward movement on the jobs front, I have given up on being glued on CNN and listening to much of NPR, my news favorite. I will watch the old Law and Order; the new versions are bizarre and depressive; there are no funny comedies on TV and in movies (getting bored with old British series’ repeats). Modern mystery novels are equally depressing; I often close them midway, when a “feelbad” conclusion starts looming. Even the “Robin-Hood” heroes of writers as Robert B. Parker and John D. MacDonald’s Spencer and Travis McGee, who follow the standard that the good will prevail, no matter how illegally the result is accomplished, do not always fit the “feelgood” reading bill. Of the recent crop, Alexander McCall Smith and his tales of Mma Precious Ramotswe, of the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency in Botswana are the best, although considered by the fans of the hardboiled as too “girlie.” If girlie writing fits the bill, I will buy it, and will include Lisa Scottoline’s books about the plucky Italian lady lawyers of the Rosato firm, and maybe, Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone series.
But back to the theme. This article was going to be about my devotion to Public Radio, at least two of its stations.
My first NPR love has always been WNYC, particularly the two-hour discussion programs held from 10AM to 2PM by Brian Lehrer and Leonard Lopate, Brian on local politics and education, while Lennie expands to literature, movies, music and even sports, a nice person. I remember him coming to Union Square, on a Saturday years ago, to talk to the Greenmarket people, but willing to chat about anything. When I called my dearest to tell of the encounter, she asked me to beg him to wait. When I told him that it would take 20 minutes, he said it was no problem, and they had a long chat about his predecessors, Marty the railroad man (write to ally@ix.netcom.com if you remember the full name) and Pegeen Fitzgerald and her cats. Those two shows should have wider distribution; we cannot hear them at our shack in the woods, 40 miles south of Albany.
Which brings me to the other topic, WAMC Northeast Public Radio, and the shocking revelation that for upbeat mood and feelgood emanations WAMC’ s fundraisers, in my book, are better entertainment than most radio fun programs, Garrison Keeler and the Car Boys not included. It seems to be all due to a diminutive dynamo of energy, Professor Alan Chartock, who founded the station chain (there are some 20 outlets in the tri-state area, NY, MA CT, and listeners in four more. It all started when Alan (Dr. Chartock, Professor Emeritus at the University in Albany, executive producer of the Legislative Report newspaper, and author of two weekly syndicated columns), helped an MD raise $5K he owed the financially pressed Albany Medical College to pay for electricity.
The professor started the fundraising technique of asking listeners for money, and eventually the college (AMC) turned over the station to him and the network spread, and spread.
Around June 1, early in the morning , we caught the fundraiser, with Alan proclaiming in effect, civilization will not be lost because WAMC will save it, and to call 1-800 323 9262. The storytelling began how the big radio stations with their canned programs are just waiting for the NPR stations to fail, so that they can swallow up the desirable wavelengths for commercial broadcasts of canned national messages. But we will not let them do that to a station that provides needed daily local condition reports. A call on our consciences was not all Alan offered; all donors were assured of valuable gifts from supporters, starting with a six CD set of Pete Seeger’s music, and when that ran low, recordings and interviews with Arlo Guthrie and Tommy Smothers. All this programming was interspersed with Alan’s calls on his telephone volunteers to keep the lines open, and threats of what seemed to be waterboarding, and other bad-cop imagery, and offers to listeners that he will play yodel music until they loosen their purses, and drumtolls by volunteers when particularly good contributors or matched fund donor offers came in. Donor names and locales are announced, unless they choose to remain anonymous.
As days rolled on, the tempo never dropped. Gifts changed, Tanglewood opening night tickets, Mahler’s 2nd, conducted by James Lewine, for the lawn (almost unlimited space but still a great experience, weather permitting) turned into a James Taylor concert, then $100 tickers for a John Pizzarelli concert at the Linda, WAMC’s own concert hall, a lottery for two days and nights of upscale treatment at the Kripalu health colony in the Berkshires, worth thousands.
Viewing objectively, it is salesmanship, but with a huge difference. You are not buying concrete objects, how to make money books nor God’s mercy, from canned presentations. You are responding to a palpable community pressure, you are buying peace of mind, participating in a communal involvement for community benefit, you feel good. Obstacles are announced, but no hatred is preached, only “we shall overcome,” and you are part of something beneficial for all. On Sunday the 13th of June, when Alan made his goal, $800K, and they played “America the Beautiful,” the old Kate Smith version, with the repeat at slow tempo, with low drum rolls in background, it felt like a great national victory that we were a part of.
The Chartock Fundraiser technique may nor be suitable for the huge WNYC which depends on foundations, but it would work in smaller locations. NPR guys, please take notes.
Labels: Alan Chartock
