Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Security Photo ID's Being Implemented For Roosevelt Island's Manhattan Park Building Complex - Is Manhattan Park Losing Its Relaxing Atmosphere?

Roosevelt Island's Manhattan Park buildings complex management recently sent out this notice to resident:

Dear Residents,

We have recently begun using the Photo ID feature on Buildinglink. The purpose of this is for the concierge in every building to become more familiar with the faces of their residents, for safety reasons and to improve overall service. Please come to the Rental Office at 30 River Road from the hours of 10 A.M. to 5 P.M. any day except Thursdays to have your picture taken. Please ask for Remy.

Thank you,
Manhattan Park Rental Office
A Manhattan Park resident comments on the new photo id feature and other matters of concern for Manhattan Park residents:
I don't personally have an issue with it - we seem to have a rotating series of people behind the counters, which means they don't really get to know the residents very well and this will (potentially) increase security. I'm not making it a priority to skip work and go get my photo done, however.

We do have a number of people in the buildings who greatly value their privacy who may not desire to store their image in such a system. There are also a number of folks with "guests" and the Air B&B crowd who are renting out space for the long or short term who certainly will object, as this will complicate their additional revenue stream (they already try to make that difficult by not mailing our rent statements and instead sticking them on the doors the day they're due - since the amount changes every month with the utility charges, you need to get the statement in order to pay).

I do see it as somewhat poorly announced and handled. This email is the first we've heard. Coupled with the increasingly unenjoyable environment at MP - the workers busy on the facade, the elevators being modernized/repaired, and the streets being shut off and dug up, MP has lost much of the relaxing park-like atmosphere to which I was first attracted. Now, getting to and from my apartment has become a hassle. One might think a smart management company would be going out of their way to keep residents happy at this time.
Here's what Main Street looks like for Manhattan Park residents during it's reconstruction and the moving of the Gristedes/Motorgate bus stop to 10 River Road.



A resident tweeted earlier today about the Main Street construction:
On photo ID's, DNA INFO recently reported:
Residents of a 1,200-unit apartment complex at Broadway and 135th Street held a 12-hour protest against a plan by management to require them to have photo id to enter the building.

Chanting "Enough is enough!" the residents, joined by representatives of Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, state Assemblymen Keith Wright and City Councilman Robert Jackson, said complex owner Urban American Management should have consulted with residents about ways to improve safety before instituting the plan....

5 comments :

YetAnotherRIer said...

This is the first time I hear about the picture ID thing. Not sure what I should think about it because I don't feel that Manhattan Park is an unsafe place to live at. The concierges pretty much know the tenants more or less, at least those concierges that actually care for their jobs. I have this feeling that the picture ID is supposed to be implemented because the "quality" of the concierges has been going down over the last, say, 5 or so year. It'll definitely make their (and management's) job easier.


Manhattan Park management has been promising a lot of things over the many years I have been living there and very few of their ideas ever made it into reality. So, we'll see how this all shakes out. I am very sure, though, that there will be very little push back if they indeed implement it due to the make up of the tenants (the majority lives here only temporarily).


A couple of words about the construction mess: I'd rather live in inconvenience for six months and let them fix everything at once instead of stretching it out over years because of spreading the work out.

Mark Lyon said...

My understanding is that Main Street work continues until at least April, Elevator modernization projects can take a year or more (my office is doing 1 of 4 elevators in each bank at a time and has instructed us to expect the work to take at least 2 years), and I've not seen any official word on the duration and extent of the facade work. I suspect we're going to be dealing with construction for quite some time, only to find that once it's done, the construction equipment for the southern part of the island will start rumbling down the helix.

mpresident said...

My doorman told me about it a few weeks ago. Bruno is the best.

Also, I'm pretty sure that Manhattan Park lost its "relaxing atmosphere" they day I had to take the stairs up to my apartment (granted, I guess I was lucky I wasn't the pregnant lady who lived on the 22nd floor who had to wait in the lobby for 2 hours while they got one of the elevators running...)

YetAnotherRIer said...

Welcome to NYC where construction never stops.

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