Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Project elevators to finally be repaired

From AM-NY:

New York City housing projects will get $423 million in federal stimulus money.

Nearly $70 million will go toward repairing and upgrading elevators. There have been several accidents involving elevators in housing projects in recent years.

More than $200 million will go toward improvements that will make the city Housing Authority more energy efficient like new appliances and electrical upgrades.

9 comments:

lino said...

The boy friend of a waitress in one of my locations worked for an elevator co that had contracts for NYCHA and Co-Op City.

The vandalism stories he told were appalling.
One of the favs was to break the glass on the shaftway doors, send the cab up a few flights and reach in and pull the bottom cable out through the broken window. Then they would put 2X4 or similar through the loop and send the elevator upwards, the result was to pull the door off it's tracks into the shaft and sever the cable.

Then there was the "flaming Christmas tree".

Spray paint, scratchitti and urine are for beginners.

All of ofcourse give lie to the old saying of "don't shit in your own backyard"

If you visit friends in projects you'll not that the elevators are all stainless with vandal proof lights and near bulletproof control panels.

So, we'll shell out $70M+ and our dear project dwellers will no-doubt find new ways to thank us for their free or nearly free homes.

georgetheatheist said...

Collectivist Housing.

And you want Collectivist Medical Care?

Change you can believe in.

Lino said...

" georgetheatheist said...
Collectivist Housing.
And you want Collectivist Medical Care?"

Oh come on..that's just idiotic Limbaugh brainwash.

There was -nothing- wrong with the concept or practice of public housing until uncivilized people were allowed to dominate there.

Public Housing was intended to get the -working- class out of the hands of shit landlords and their firetrap buildings and provide them with a safe, clean environment.

The original requirements were for either a provable income or hardship due to loss of spouse etc.

This criteria got expanded for purposes of social engineering in the late 1950s at a time when the city was seeing an influx from the south and the Caribbean.

This is an area I studied while at NYU in the late 70s and my data is dusty however, NYC alone built well over 110 thousand units of public and Mitchell-Lama housing during the 50s alone, more in the 1960s including a remarkable development of high end P.H. called Taino Towers here in Harlem.

Unfortunately, some of the people (including classmates of mine) who moved into these developments brought uncivilized habits with them and subsequently soured the public's taste for this sort of development.

It's still a good concept..but you have to screen tenants carefully.

Anonymous said...

My grandmother's (white) friends lived in the projects in Sheepshead Bay when they first opened. They moved to Phoenix as soon as the "coloreds" started moving in. If people weren't racist, the projects might not have turned into crime dens, but rather working class housing for people of all backgrounds. Oh well . . .

georgetheatheist said...

"...but you have to screen tenants carefully."

How? Checking if their underwear is clean? If they have Mozart in their CD libraries? No Ripple in their wine cellars?

How? Tell us how? In the Age of Al Sharpton.

"L'enfers. C'est les autres" -Jean-Paul Sartre ("Hell is other people.")

Re "shit landlords" and "fire-trap" buildings. If the conditions are so bad, move. ("Go West, young man, go West" - Horace Greeley)

Anonymous said...

"If people weren't racist, the projects might not have turned into crime dens"

yes, your white friends moving out of the projects are the reason why there is crime there. sounds more like the reason they left.

Taxpayer said...

Only a cynic would look at this and conclude that this spending is for campaign purposes only.

Ten minutes after the first elevator is repaired, it will be destroyed by uncivilized barbarians who are self- and other-destructive.

neversleep said...

At one time, there were at least a dozen machine shops around the city that regularly fabricated spare parts for elevators. The reality is that with the various makes and ages, there is little standardization.

Usually, these small entrepreneurships were reasonably priced, and "up-engineered" to make superior replacements. It's in the nature of the master machinist to do that.

As the manufacturing base of the city was stamped out, a process just about completed 20 years ago, this resource disappeared.

Anonymous said...

so, let me get this straight, if the white racists hadnt left these perfectly acceptable buildings and had stayed in them, there would be no problems. is that what you are saying? when the white racists lived there did they shit and piss in the elevators?
did they shit and piss in the stairwells?
did they leave every other imaginable body fluid in the hallways, stairways and elevators?
did they destroy the buildings they lived in, just for the fun of it?
maybe they left because they didnt want to live with the animals that were moving in.

you have probably never been in a housing project. i have been.