Co-Op city Bronx Best Buildings (Lee: neighborhoods, maintenance, to live in)
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Well duh. Of course it comes out the maintenance.
Other places I'm sure charge maintenance and then charge you again for the other stuff.
I grew up on Benchley Place in a 3 bedroom with a terrace facing the water.
It was g r e a t.
Used to run the AC 24/7 in the summer while others in the Valley and elsewhere complained about their AC bill.
If I were still in NY, I'd move back to Co-Op before even looking anywhere else.
Anybody remember "Cappys" candy store in Dreiser Loop??
Lamstons in Bartow Mall?
Photophonix in Bartow mall?
The Exxon oil tanker that exploded?
Suicide turn on the way to section 5 BEFORE they put that dividing wall?
The "Spiderman burglar?--used to use a rope and swing down to the top apartments? I grew up with him.
The Fair on the greenway?
Ahhhh....the memories...
Hey, my family moved to Benchley Place in 1985/6...Bldg 24. Small world! And yes, I remember Cappy's, and everything else you mentioned. I remember the fair. Co op was an awesome place to raise kids, I tell you.
I think Alcott Place is Section 4. For some reason except for Section 5 ('E') the letters and the sections are backwards. Section 1, the first built, has streets beginning with D (eg Dreiser Loop), Section 2 has C (Carver Loop), Section 3 is B (Bellamy Loop) and Section 4 is A (Asch Loop.) Some of the borderline cases, especially townhouse clusters, may break that rule.
All utilities -- air conditioning or heat when it's sent, electricity, cooking gas, hot and cold water -- are unmetered and included in the monthly rent/carrying charge/maintenance. Call it what you will, you month-to-month payment will be the same whether you use a lot or a little.
There's a lot not to like, but agreed the architecture is wonderful, for all the reasons stated: views, privacy, interior room, ventilation.
I think the project was doomed to fail. At 15,000 units it's too big for direct democracy, so while it's legally a cooperative it functions as rental housing. Residents (cooperators or tenants, your choice) don't feel a sense of ownership in Riverbay (even less so the more Albany is involved) and neither is there a sense of ownership in individual units, as is the case with Single Family Homes, so people don't watch things as carefully. The Rochdale model (particularly that shares in the cooperative may be sold only back to the cooperative, for the same nominal dollar price paid) embodies that socialist idealism that profit is bad, and it doesn't work. Even if you don't believe in profit, inflation means you're losing money. On the other hand, people who buy in later are paying much more.
Anything that big breeds corruption, and that was the case. Projected rents were less than half what would be required to maintain the actual mortgage, but this wasn't revealed until the place was occupied. This meant all those middle class people whose taxes Albany and NYC were trying to keep in NYC, regardless of color or religion, had given up their rent-controlled apartment, and also passed on what would have been a better opportunity available to many, suburban single family housing: Between the mid 1960s when they applied and the early 1970s real estate had boomed, and housing that was just in reach then was now out of reach.
My impression was that every few years a new slate would run for the Board of Directors on a platform of "Clear out the corrupt old regime, we are the new honest regime" -- just like Woody Allen showed us in Bananas.
As for race, in the 1960s the middle class that was leaving NYC for suburbia had a big Jewish component. The Cross Bronx Expressway and other Robert Moses projects had killed neighborhoods in the South Bronx, and rent control was ruining them like dominoes falling down, same for the Grand Concourse. Even in Section 1 for many of the white tenants this was the most mixed-race place they'd lived, and that was considered a feature.
10 years later the non-white component of the middle class was significant.
I had a better time of it in Section 1 in the 1970s than did the woman who is now my wife in Section 5 in those years.
If you look at it like a rental, it's generally one of the best deals within the 5 boroughs, if that's what you want. The transit connections are worse than many parts of the city. And the required equity payment is comparable to a downpayment on a house. But sometimes I think I'd like to move back, just for those views of the sun setting behind the Palisades 5 miles away. (Or I'd take another apartment with water, or Manhattan, views.) Then again sometimes I think I'd like to move back to the Washington Heights apartment we moved out of to move to Co-op City.
I think Alcott Place is Section 4. For some reason except for Section 5 ('E') the letters and the sections are backwards. Section 1, the first built, has streets beginning with D (eg Dreiser Loop), Section 2 has C (Carver Loop), Section 3 is B (Bellamy Loop) and Section 4 is A (Asch Loop.) Some of the borderline cases, especially townhouse clusters, may break that rule.
All utilities -- air conditioning or heat when it's sent, electricity, cooking gas, hot and cold water -- are unmetered and included in the monthly rent/carrying charge/maintenance. Call it what you will, you month-to-month payment will be the same whether you use a lot or a little.
There's a lot not to like, but agreed the architecture is wonderful, for all the reasons stated: views, privacy, interior room, ventilation.
I think the project was doomed to fail. At 15,000 units it's too big for direct democracy, so while it's legally a cooperative it functions as rental housing. Residents (cooperators or tenants, your choice) don't feel a sense of ownership in Riverbay (even less so the more Albany is involved) and neither is there a sense of ownership in individual units, as is the case with Single Family Homes, so people don't watch things as carefully. The Rochdale model (particularly that shares in the cooperative may be sold only back to the cooperative, for the same nominal dollar price paid) embodies that socialist idealism that profit is bad, and it doesn't work. Even if you don't believe in profit, inflation means you're losing money. On the other hand, people who buy in later are paying much more.
Anything that big breeds corruption, and that was the case. Projected rents were less than half what would be required to maintain the actual mortgage, but this wasn't revealed until the place was occupied. This meant all those middle class people whose taxes Albany and NYC were trying to keep in NYC, regardless of color or religion, had given up their rent-controlled apartment, and also passed on what would have been a better opportunity available to many, suburban single family housing: Between the mid 1960s when they applied and the early 1970s real estate had boomed, and housing that was just in reach then was now out of reach.
My impression was that every few years a new slate would run for the Board of Directors on a platform of "Clear out the corrupt old regime, we are the new honest regime" -- just like Woody Allen showed us in Bananas.
As for race, in the 1960s the middle class that was leaving NYC for suburbia had a big Jewish component. The Cross Bronx Expressway and other Robert Moses projects had killed neighborhoods in the South Bronx, and rent control was ruining them like dominoes falling down, same for the Grand Concourse. Even in Section 1 for many of the white tenants this was the most mixed-race place they'd lived, and that was considered a feature.
10 years later the non-white component of the middle class was significant.
I had a better time of it in Section 1 in the 1970s than did the woman who is now my wife in Section 5 in those years.
If you look at it like a rental, it's generally one of the best deals within the 5 boroughs, if that's what you want. The transit connections are worse than many parts of the city. And the required equity payment is comparable to a downpayment on a house. But sometimes I think I'd like to move back, just for those views of the sun setting behind the Palisades 5 miles away. (Or I'd take another apartment with water, or Manhattan, views.) Then again sometimes I think I'd like to move back to the Washington Heights apartment we moved out of to move to Co-op City.
Actually, there was a lot TO like about Co-op City, especially when I was growing up. It was a safe, diverse, masterplanned neighborhood that provided middle income New Yorkers of all colors a place to raise their families. Transit options were no worse than any other areas that weren't right next to a train station and there was an express bus. No big deal.
If it seems like I am ardently defending Co-op City it's because flaws and all, it was a damn good place to raise a family back in those days. My environment played a big part in my success today. I might not have had as many trappings of the suburbanites, but what I did have was safety, diversity, excellent educational opportunities. I had a good life.
I was on the 7th floor.
You KNOW we know each other right?
lolollololllloooll
Wow! We probably do... I find that pretty cool, if you asked me. Those were some good times back then.. I'm many, many miles away now, heh...
Quote:
Originally Posted by SeventhFloor
Wow Co-Op reunion up in here
I know! Isn't that awesome
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