Category: Building Operations

 The days when an apartment building's 'security system' consisted of a tricky  front door lock and the landlord's ill-tempered dog are long past. Today,  security measures range from old-style deadbolts to high-tech biometric  screening e…

 Your co-op or condo unit houses more than your material possessions. The  management office also typically contains detailed information about you—including your social security number, credit card number, emergency  information, phone nu…

 Recent nationwide crime statistics show that New York City and its outlying  suburbs has become one of the safest cities of its size in the past 15 years.  Nevertheless, in a sprawling metropolitan area encompassing New York and New  Jers…

 A few years ago, when I lived in the East Village—in a one-bedroom, fifth-floor walk-up—I had a creepy experience when the cable guy came to hook up our service. He arrived in a beat-up windowless van that looked like it had been boosted …

Managing a cooperative or condominium apartment building in New York would be a piece of cake… if weren’t for all those people. “The bricks and mortar is easy,” says Margie Russell, managing director of the New York Association…

 For building owners and managers in New York, winter weather not only refers to  the white stuff that falls out of the sky—but rather, the white stuff that collects in a building’s lobby.    That’s right—ice and snow can be a build…

The deep freeze of winter will fall on New York again very soon and most New Yorkers are hoping that we don't get pounded as badly by snow and ice this year as we did some years ago. Because of weather’s unpredictability during winter, …

In many ways, a building’s boiler is like the heart is to the body: it provides heat and circulation; it works unseen; and if properly maintained, it will function well for decades without a problem. Maintaining the heat source of the c…

It’s a well-known fact that New Yorkers are tough. But even the bravest Big Apple resident shivers just a little bit when the first signs of winter settle over the city. Winter and the inevitable snow and ice that accompany it take thei…

If you’re a board member, a manager or just a unit owner of a typical New York City-area co-op or condo, chances are you use an elevator every day, except if you live in a “garden apartment” complex in one of the outer boroughs or the s…