Co-op City Times 12/28/13

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Happy New Year and Happy Kwanzaa from the Co-op City Times!

Co-op City’s official newspaper serving the world’s largest cooperative community.

Vol. 48 No. 52

© Copyright 2013 Co-op City Times

Proposed Bartow elevator could be up and running by next fall Work could begin this spring on construction of a new elevator to help cooperators, particularly seniors, who walk through the Bartow Community Center. Unlike the Einstein and Dreiser Community Centers, the Bartow Center, which contains most of the Riverbay administrative offices, never has had an elevator to carry visitors between the first and second levels. The New York City building code in the 1960s did not require an elevator in Bartow, and the original Co-op City developers did not include one in the original construction plans. But the time has come to build one and Riverbay officials are hopeful that the new Bartow elevator could be giving shareholders a lift by next fall. “Because Co-op City is the nation’s largest naturally occurring retirement community, and because we have an aging population, it is becoming more BY JIM ROBERTS

and more difficult for a lot of our residents to go up and down the staircases in Bartow,” said Joe Boiko, Riverbay’s ombudsman and also the manager of the elevator construction project. “Not only is it a struggle for some of our cooperators to go up and down the steps, some of them have their shopping carts as they go to the stores here and they have to maneuver the staircases which can be dangerous,” Boiko said. “Unfortunately, we have had incidents of people falling and getting hurt on the stairs.” Over the last few months, preliminary discussions regarding the proposed Bartow elevator seemed to be leading to an elevator that would have been built outside in the plaza. But the final drawings developed by the engineer for the project have now moved the elevator inside the existing building foyer. (Continued on page 2)

Riverbay New Years’ holiday closings and Co-op City Times deadlines

Riverbay’s administrative offices will operate with full staff until 1 p.m. and with reduced staff until 5 p.m. on New Year’s Eve, Tuesday, December 31 with the exception of the Rent Bookkeeping office, which will operate with full staff until 5 p.m. because Tuesday will be the last business day of the month. On New Year’s Day, Wednesday, January 1st, all Riverbay offices and community centers will be closed. On the holiday, Wednesday, shareholders may contact Riverbay at (718) 320-3300, and follow the prompts for emergency maintenance, and the Co-op City Public Safety Department for

MTA finalizing its Co-op City bus study; findings should be released next month

Saturday, December 28, 2013

emergencies at (718) 671-3050, as well as 9-1-1. Because of the holiday shortened work week, Directors’ viewpoints and community organizations’ articles must be submitted on time by their respective deadlines. Club articles are due by 3 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 30 and Directors’ viewpoints are due by 5 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 30. Material submitted after these times will not be considered for publication in the Saturday, January 4, 2014 issue of the Co-op City Times. We wish our readers a happy Kwanzaa and Three Kings celebrations, and a healthy and prosperous New Year.

BY BILL STUTTIG As promised, a comprehensive study of the state of Co-op City’s bus service and the effectiveness of how it meets the current and future needs of the community, its residents and the surrounding expanding commercial development, is now in the process of being finalized, according to a spokesman for the MTA. Responding to an inquiry from the Co-op City Times about the status of the promised study, MTA spokesperson Marisa Baldeo said, “We are in the process of finalizing the study and we expect to share the results next month.” The study was first announced as the

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MTA released its financial plan for the next three years on July 22nd of 2013 stating as part of that public information public release, “In an effort to evaluate the adequacy of existing bus service in Co-op City, NYC Transit and MTA Bus will also be launching a joint bus study. In this study, which is expected to take five months, New York City Transit and MTA Bus will undertake a comprehensive review of existing bus operations and ridership in the vicinity of Co-op City to assess the reliability of existing service and where there may be opportunities for

2013 in Review: January to June (Continued on page 2)

The following is an account of the major events occurring in or affecting Co-op City during the first six months of 2013 as reported by the Co-op City Times. Next week’s issue will feature an account of the second half of 2013. January: 2013 began with a report from Riverbay’s Department of Public Safety which showed that crime was down in Co-op City in most major crime categories including a 39% drop in robberies, a 60% drop in burglaries a 25% drop in auto theft and a 50% drop in criminal mischief. Long-time Co-op City Councilman Larry Seabrook was sentenced to five years in federal prison following his conviction in 2012 on charges related to misappropriations of public funds. Federal judge Deborah Batts, who announced the sentence on January 8, said of the long-time Councilman “Instead of holding himself to a higher fiduciary standard as a Councilman, the defendant held himself above the law.” Prosecutors were hoping for a nine-year-prison term. Seabrook began serving the sentence in March. Early in the afternoon on January 13th, two young men were victimized by a shooting at the rear of Building 28A in Section 5. One of the victims was a Co-op City resident. They were both BY BILL STUTTIG

rushed to Jacobi Medical Center where they were listed in stable condition. On January 16th, more than 1000 residents attended a luncheon hosted by Co-op City’s managing agent to learn about the numerous capital improvement projects made possible by the recent $621.5 million refinancing loan through Wells Fargo Bank and guaranteed by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. On the afternoon of January 22nd, a 15-year-old boy brazenly and foolishly tried to hold up the Amalgamated Bank branch at the Bartow Shopping Center by stating to a teller that he had a bomb. The teller handed the boy a bag of cash which also contained dye packs that exploded in the face of the boy as he walked outside the bank and attempted to open the bag, leaving him red faced both literally and figuratively. He dropped the bag of cash and ran towards Asch Loop but was caught by Public Safety and 45th Precinct officers moments later. (Continued on page 3)


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