Mel Garskof is thrilled about the lobby makeover that will happen in the coming year at the Kips Bay area cooperative building where he lives. The public halls will be renovated, including new wallpaper and carpet, doors will be repain…
A recent British survey found that the typical person spends an average of five years of their life in either their kitchen or their bathroom. That might not compare with the number of hours logged behind a desk or the wheel of a car, …
Bad economic news is pretty much inescapable these days. You can’t turn on the TV without hearing about another round of layoffs or plummeting consumer confidence. The stock market is a roller coaster, retirement funds are shedding valu…
Buckminster Fuller, a thinker, inventor, artist, mathematician, (the list goes on,) once said, “People should think things out fresh and not just accept conventional terms and the conventional way of doing things.” Fuller, most famous f…
No matter what the job—be it flipping burgers at a chain restaurant or running a multinational investment firm—employees should be given periodic reviews of their performance to assess how they’re doing and identify both their strengths…
As residential buildings and the business of managing them have become more sophisticated, the term “super”—as in superintendent—has come to mean “super-qualified.” The days of the building handyman armed with little other than a ring of…
Time was, if the tiles in your building’s front foyer got grimy, your super would pour some ammonia or bleach in a bucket, grab the nearest mop, and get down to business. If a drain was slow, out came the heavy-duty industrial solvents, …
Safety first” is good advice on any job, but it is especially appropriate for the varied and dynamic tasks assigned to co-op and condo building staff. Whether checking furnace valves, sealing minor plumbing leaks, keeping the lobby flo…
You know you’re living in a hot neighborhood when people from Manhattan visit the area to sample the restaurants and shopping. That’s exactly the status enjoyed by Park Slope, Brooklyn, the area under the south side of Prospect Park tha…
Condo and co-op boards are always looking for ways to save money and one area where some cost-cutting opportunities might be found is in your legal bills. Your building's attorney likely performs many different types of services, works d…
Say the words "80/20 rule" to a New York City co-op board, and you may be met with groans and furrowed brows. A provision in Section 216 of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax code, the 80/20 rule limits the amount of commercial revenu…
With all the recent concern over environmental hazards in residential buildings - mold, funguses, and various allergens - it makes good sense to discuss one of the most dangerous of the invisible problems that can plague a home or building…
So, it’s the holiday season again and everyone is feeling generous, even you. You seem to have gotten past your Scrooge-stage and feel like splurging on someone else for a change. You don’t mind going the extra mile for your neighbor or run…
While it may be a cliché, it's entirely true that few things are more important than keeping a solid roof over your head. And like any other aspect of a building's structural composition, your roof has a life span that is dictated by time…
New York City is famous the world over for being "The City That Never Sleeps", but perhaps, as one sardonic resident put it, "They should call it ‘The City That Never Lets You Sleep’!" Thanks to honking cabs, shrieking trains, hypersensitiv…
"I'm on the board of my co-op in Queens, and there's a problem with our current president; without consulting the other board members, he has cancelled our upcoming meeting, saying there's "˜nothing on the agenda,' and he signs service and …
The numerous, rapid conversions of the 1980s resulted in many cases of sponsor default in the early ‘90s. But as the number of building conversions slowed in the ‘90s, it seems that potential conflict between shareholders and the sponsor ma…
There's no question that human beings respond to light. Its absence can affect our sense of well-being, and this may be why bright, sunny apartments tend to be the easiest to sell. Whether you have an interior designer map out a detailed li…
Last summer, a financially beleaguered 47-unit cooperative at 30 West 90th Street in Manhattan made news when it converted to condominium status. That was not the first time a co-op converted to condo. A Teaneck, New Jersey co-op underwent …
Management experts and others in the real estate industry are always cautioning their co-op and condo clients to keep an eye on the water consumption in their buildings. The water and sewage bill received quarterly from the New York City …