Where is the Equalizer when you need him?


The meek will inherit the world? Not so much in real life. Back in the wild 1980's sometimes  it seemed that everything went on that could go on. My girlfriend at the time was subletting a rent controlled apartment on 59th st and she was scared to go home at night. The front door in her building was broken and homeless people were camped out in her hallway and sleeping there. Occasionally they would start a small fire ( to keep warm?). Her hot water repeatedly stopped working and it was difficult for her to take showers.  Eventually, she gave up going home at all and moved in with me.  Later on it turned out that "that man of the year Harry Macklowe owned the building and the rumor was he wanted to clear the building of its rent controlled tenants so he could redevelop the space.

I believe this matter was brought to housing court and he was forbidden for a long period from proceeding with any redevelopment plans. This story even turned up as an episode in my favorite show "The Equalizer". Of course the hero, an impossibly talented ex- cia (or an agent from some other mysterious agency) saved the day and rescued the tenants.

Flash forward 37 years and the building my office is housed at, 30 East 40th st., was sold. We were all told the new landlords had plans on modernizing and improving our somewhat dilapidated infra structures ( old elevators, defective fire alarm, old plumbing, and leaky pointing). This sounded good to me, but possibly naively, I thought I wouldn't have to pay for their leasehold improvements. After all, I have resided in this building since 1984, always renewed my lease and I had many years remaining on my present one.

The new owners started with replacing our three elevators and remodeling our lobby. This turned out to be a somewhat lengthy under taking and often only one of the three elevators was available for people coming and going from our offices. Many of my patients resorted to taking the stairs  (6 flights) instead of waiting for the elevator. It turned out the lobby was being renovated in stages. Finally the elevators were done but much work still needed to be done. It seemed that our local fire codes had specified that by 2019 all commercial spaces needed sprinkler systems installed.

Work started in all our common hallways with overhead pipes and wires for a new fire alarm system. Our building turned into a hub for all sorts of workmen who seemed to be occupied around the clock. Occasionally we would hear noises, but what the heck, they were upgrading our building, right?
I continued to feel this way at least until our landlord notified us all that the new sprinklers were our responsibility to pay for. They didn't explain why, except to let us know that the landlord's lawyer felt our leases made it our obligation. Now many of us felt this was unfair, since we shouldn't have to pay for these leasehold improvements, especially since we do not own our spaces and just lease them for the term our lease.

The out come of this matter remains undetermined, but last night when I was hosting my Spear Study club we could hear all sorts of noises coming from the hallway and midway through our presentation our fire alarms went off more or less continuously for thirty minutes. Now we dentists are a hardy lot and our response was to damn the torpedoes and turn the volume up to high for our presentation. After all my guests left I left the office to throw out my garbage bag and found that the workers in the hall had dismantled the dropped ceiling and started to remove all the hallway wallpaper. Numerous wires and pipes were now visible hanging from the ceiling. I ran into my super in the hallway and asked him what was going on and he said that the landlord was doing over the hallways and they had started on my floor. I responded " Ok... how long will it take? He explained that it might take 6 weeks. Now I'm sure the hall will look lovely.... eventually, but right now I wish I had the Equalizer's phone number so I could call for help!




from Ask Dr. Spindel - http://lspindelnycdds.blogspot.com/2017/12/where-is-equalizer-when-you-need-him.html - http://lspindelnycdds.blogspot.com/

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