The Pinnacle/Columbia Connection
Those of us who have lived in the Heights for a good number of decades are all too well aware of the parallels between the real estate practices of Pinnacle today being investigated by NY's Attorney General and Columbia's efforts to dig itself out of the quicksand in which it had mired itself during and after WW2 with its heavy investments in real estate rather than stocks (which were booming for its principal Ivy competitors). Columbia had assumed that rent controls imposed during wartime would be removed thereafter, allowing large returns on its real estate holdings. When they were not, Columbia became the landlord from hell. The Columbia Tenants Union was formed to fight against precisely the sort of tactics Pinnacle is using today to evict tenants, raise rents, etc.
We did not have a rent problem with Columbia, as we had avoided Columbia owned buildings for our lovely one, 440 Riverside Drive, owned by a decent landlord who shortly converted it to a co-op at affordable prices for us all. He in fact had been conned by Columbia out of some of his holdings on RSD and was, thus, disposed to favor us tenants rather than let Columbia buy our building and subject us to the worst.
We did have an encounter with Columbia's principal real estate lawyer, however. He shall remain nameless, but what transpired was that we overheard him coaching a process server at the door of the courtroom where we were appearing to lie on the stand which he did. What were the circumstances? That year we were gradually paying off a Columbia student loan for my wife with $150.00 to go. Suddenly we were hit by a salary missed payment that affected all CUNY faculty and which was widely publicized. We were paying for up front medical expenses, as my wife was well into a pregnancy and I had fallen and smashed a shoulder. When we missed a $25.00 payment, the Columbia trustees sued my wife (despite her phoned in explanation of the delay). A summons was stuck on our door. The rules of the game were that a summons handed to a party personally was immediately effective whereas the 'nail and mail' variety had a reasonable delay period before payment for debt had to be made. The bottom line was that the Columbia lawyer, having learned through our protest that my wife had been in the hospital giving birth to our last child the day that she had allegedly had the summons handed to her, instructed his process server to testify that he had in fact handed the summons to a younger woman resembling my wife (in our apartment) and claiming to be her. The judge threw out the case. Our highly respected (in this community) lawyer advised against reporting the Columbia lawyer to the Bar -- a waste of time and effort.
I go on at length here to explain why residents here in the Heights are dubious about Columbia's real estate moves. In the past one administration has made promises to residents which were conveniently forgotten by the next. We are dubious about Columbia's move on Manhattanville. Columbia could have located its biotech operation in the open spaces outside the city -- they were going to put faculty housing towards the Catskills at one point with bus connections back and forth. The proposed gentrification of Manhattanville is going to hurt all who live in that area by raising costs of living, encouraging the Pinnacle type operations to drive out low income tenants, take away existing jobs, and do exactly what Robert Moses notoriously did to one poor community after another during his reign as NYC's urban planning Tzar.
Needless to say the current Columbia people may mean well -- clear out the trash down there and put in a nice new campus. But they have no awareness of the suffering that they are imposing on those frightened for their homes, jobs, businesses. And I am a bit doubtful about Columbia plunging itself into yet another bad real estate fiasco such as that after WW2. Biotech is scarcely unique to Columbia and the competition will be fierce -- not just here in the States, but in the nations overseas that are pulling ahead of us in this field. There are better ways to use those 18 acres in the public interest of the people of Harlem and the environs there. Better to put the monies into tuition reductions.
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"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
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Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net
We did not have a rent problem with Columbia, as we had avoided Columbia owned buildings for our lovely one, 440 Riverside Drive, owned by a decent landlord who shortly converted it to a co-op at affordable prices for us all. He in fact had been conned by Columbia out of some of his holdings on RSD and was, thus, disposed to favor us tenants rather than let Columbia buy our building and subject us to the worst.
We did have an encounter with Columbia's principal real estate lawyer, however. He shall remain nameless, but what transpired was that we overheard him coaching a process server at the door of the courtroom where we were appearing to lie on the stand which he did. What were the circumstances? That year we were gradually paying off a Columbia student loan for my wife with $150.00 to go. Suddenly we were hit by a salary missed payment that affected all CUNY faculty and which was widely publicized. We were paying for up front medical expenses, as my wife was well into a pregnancy and I had fallen and smashed a shoulder. When we missed a $25.00 payment, the Columbia trustees sued my wife (despite her phoned in explanation of the delay). A summons was stuck on our door. The rules of the game were that a summons handed to a party personally was immediately effective whereas the 'nail and mail' variety had a reasonable delay period before payment for debt had to be made. The bottom line was that the Columbia lawyer, having learned through our protest that my wife had been in the hospital giving birth to our last child the day that she had allegedly had the summons handed to her, instructed his process server to testify that he had in fact handed the summons to a younger woman resembling my wife (in our apartment) and claiming to be her. The judge threw out the case. Our highly respected (in this community) lawyer advised against reporting the Columbia lawyer to the Bar -- a waste of time and effort.
I go on at length here to explain why residents here in the Heights are dubious about Columbia's real estate moves. In the past one administration has made promises to residents which were conveniently forgotten by the next. We are dubious about Columbia's move on Manhattanville. Columbia could have located its biotech operation in the open spaces outside the city -- they were going to put faculty housing towards the Catskills at one point with bus connections back and forth. The proposed gentrification of Manhattanville is going to hurt all who live in that area by raising costs of living, encouraging the Pinnacle type operations to drive out low income tenants, take away existing jobs, and do exactly what Robert Moses notoriously did to one poor community after another during his reign as NYC's urban planning Tzar.
Needless to say the current Columbia people may mean well -- clear out the trash down there and put in a nice new campus. But they have no awareness of the suffering that they are imposing on those frightened for their homes, jobs, businesses. And I am a bit doubtful about Columbia plunging itself into yet another bad real estate fiasco such as that after WW2. Biotech is scarcely unique to Columbia and the competition will be fierce -- not just here in the States, but in the nations overseas that are pulling ahead of us in this field. There are better ways to use those 18 acres in the public interest of the people of Harlem and the environs there. Better to put the monies into tuition reductions.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net
posted by Ed Kent at 8:04 AM
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