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Jane Jacobs, the late, legendary urban planner whose grassroots activism prevented Robert Moses from turning Battery Park into a series of bridges, highways, and on-ramps, wrote at great length of the importance of well-used sidewalks …
Whether it affects a small portion of one unit or the entire association, a fire is easily one of the most devastating and destructive events that can happen in any multifamily building. New technology and current regulations have made …
Some building hazards—things like cracked sidewalks, broken windows or crumbling masonry—are obvious to even an untrained eye, making it easy to conduct repairs and prevent further deterioration and potential injury. Other buil…
Falling bricks. Rickety scaffolding. An errant nail and an unsuspecting foot. Things can go wrong during renovation and restoration projects no matter what the size and scale of the work at hand. Whether the job is tackling a new façade…
Over the past two decades, New York City has become a safer place than it once was. But events in recent years, both at home and abroad, have made Americans more aware of security—how much they have, how much they’d like, and how much s…
Of all the responsibilities that come with being a manager of a residential building, few are as important as ensuring the safety of your residents. “Safety is part of our job description,” says Bob Grant, director of Managemen…
On September 7, 1927, 19-year-old Philo T. Farnsworth created the first television system that could not only display, but transmit signals between separate rooms. Now more than 80 years later, another historic date in broadcast transm…
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…
So your condo or co-op’s management company is getting ready to hire a new service employee. It could be a doorman, it could be a maintenance man, it could be a swimming-pool supervisor. Is this a simple process, or a complicated one? A…
To quote Charles Dickens, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” but in this case, the reverse is true. When I started my design firm 26 years ago, the idea of a company specializing in designing common areas of…
Digital cameras…camera phones… smartphones. These terms weren’t even in our vocabulary ten years ago, yet today, many New Yorkers carry this pocket-sized technology with them everywhere they go. One of the goals of the administration is …
The expression “Better safe than sorry” is known by everyone. As apartment dwellers, it is important not to take advantage of the sense of security felt by having a doorman posted at the door or hallways lined with sprinklers and let ou…
Push aside old notions of ineffective security officers. The security officer of the future has arrived. Today’s security officer may be navigating tours on a Segway to patrol airports, transit stations, manufacturing facilities, apartm…
Q Our co-op board issued a list of breeds of dogs they considered “aggressive,” which will no longer be permitted, other than those already grandfathered in. I can’t remember them all, but it must have been close to 30 breeds. They cla…
Q I live in a 47-unit building and many of my neighbors have two or three children living with either one or two parents in the one-bedroom apartments. I believe that those apartments should be paying additional maintenance to cover th…
Q Two weeks prior to our annual condo election, the unit owners receive their proxies in the mail. However, a board member, who was up for re-election, obtained a proxy from the managing agent two weeks earlier than all the unit owners. I…