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Program Paves the Way For Proud New Citizens

By Heather Haddon

After 30 years as a New Yorker, Felix Grimaldo decided it was finally time to become an American.

Grimaldo, 66, sure seemed like one. He paid his taxes on income from a range of jobs that included cooking for Wall Street workers, staffing a Hilton hotel and igniting Malibu 151 as a bartender of exotic Polynesian drinks. His English was good. His baseball vocabulary was better.

As the years rolled on, through love, marriage and fatherhood, the native Peruvian kept putting off citizenship.

But in 2003, he took the plunge. Grimaldo joined dozens of other immigrants attending citizenship classes at Fordham Bedford Children’s Services (FBCS). Somewhere between jobs, he memorized which states were the Union’s 47th and 50th (New Mexico and Hawaii). He got the presidential cabinet down pat. He was coached on what to wear and how to act.

“I was worried because it’s very important,” said Grimaldo, who lives on Bainbridge Avenue. “But I wasn’t nervous because I had studied so much.”

Last week, Grimaldo joined dozens of other local residents in a room strewn with red, white and blue balloons and flag-print tablecloths. It was hokey, and rightly so. For these new citizens, their American pride — and citizenship status — is finally recognized.

“I am very proud,” said Grimaldo, during FBCS’s first annual citizenship ceremony at Concourse House. “I so wanted to be an American.”

As the immigration debate rages in Washington, FBCS has quietly helped area residents integrate into American society through weekly citizenship classes. The program, a joint effort with Our Lady of Refuge Church, began in 1996 as a response to the growing number of residents applying to become citizens.

Many of them weren’t prepared. “We had a lot of people going to take the test, but they were failing,” said John Garcia, FBCS’s executive director.

Most permanent U.S. residents can apply for citizenship, but it requires time, money and patience. Applicants must first fill out paperwork and come up with the $400 fee. After a few months, they are fingerprinted. Following another wait, there is the dreaded interview and exam. They are given their results that day.

Frankie Resto, FBCS’s citizenship instructor for the past five years, covers everything from the Constitution to fingernail hygiene in his classes. Most students also take ESL, as the interview is in English. “There are so many things involved,” said Resto, who advises his students to avoid jeans and be forthcoming, but not overly eager.

The interview is very personal. Questions cover political affiliations (communists are frowned upon), and sexual history (Ever been a prostitute? How about a polygamist?).

“They put them on the hot seat, so we try to take their nervousness away,” Resto said.

FBCS’s approach has yielded success. Resto says all but two of his 72 students have become citizens, including those who could barely speak English when they began. He takes tremendous pride in each one. “I have them call me immediately after they find out,” said Resto, who was near tears during the ceremony.

Last week’s 22 honorees were a mix of young mothers and laborers, and older gentlemen with groomed hair and tight suit coats. Many forfeited precious work hours to receive a commemorative plaque and a slice of sheet cake that congratulated “the new American citizens,” in Spanish. They came from countries all over the Caribbean and the Americas. Many shared similar reasons for becoming citizens.

“You can vote,” said William Sanchez, 38, a Valentine Avenue resident. “You have a right to decide. We want to do our part.”

Grimaldo also can’t wait to pull the electoral lever. “I know some people just want to bring their family, but I want to vote,” he said.

Sanchez’ sister, Altagracia Contreras, sought benefits for her daughters. Through a public scholarship, Contreras’ 14-year-old can now attend the prestigious Riverdale Country School.

Immigration legislation is being bitterly debated these days. But Garcia stressed that these new citizens are following in the America tradition. “[Many] of our founding fathers were [not] from this country,” said Garcia, who is Dominican. “We’re adding to this country, not taking from it.”

They may now be full-fledged Americans, but los nuevos ciudadanos (new citizens) aren’t relinquishing their roots. Amid the patriotic party decorations, the buffet featured arroz con pollo and the stereo served up hot salsa songs.

Grimaldo has had a foot in several cultures in the 30 years since he first landed at JFK Airport. His Peruvian black clams are sensational, but so are his Mai Tais. He still visits Lima, and is accompanied by his Puerto Rican wife.

His can-do attitude, however, is all-American. “I came here to work hard. I took two jobs,” he said. “You sacrifice, and you make something good of yourself.”

Tracey Fire Victims Cite Ignored Repair Requests

By Heather Haddon

The family living in the Tracey Towers apartment destroyed by a fire last month says the incident could have been prevented if management had responded to prior repair requests.

The Asantes, who lived in 24D with their four children, charge that Tracey’s owners ignored city orders to fix the unit’s window and failed to address persistent electrical problems. They believe that a faulty outlet, not a space heater, caused the blaze that destroyed their home and everything they owned.

“If they did what they should have done, this never would have happened,” said Kofi Asante, 33, about R-Y Management, which runs Tracey. “They treat us like animals.”

The three-alarm fire broke out on Feb. 26 on the 24th floor of Tower A, and traveled all the way up to the 30th floor. The blaze was fanned by strong winds and air coming from the hallway after the Asantes fled their apartment, leaving the door open.

“If you have a fire in your apartment, close the door behind you,” advised Roger Montesano, a Fire Department representative, while discussing the situation during a Community Board 7 meeting last week.

The Asantes, who are from Ghana, escaped unharmed. The Red Cross helped them find temporary housing in Harlem, and they are now living in another apartment at Tracey. Their old unit is uninhabitable.

Montesano said the blaze was caused by a space heater that ignited the Asantes’ bedroom curtains. But Stella Asante, Kofi’s wife, saw the fire coming from behind the bed, not the heater. “It was an electrical fire,” she said.

There was another fire in 24D before the Asantes moved in six years ago, and the electricity has suffered ever since, they said. Some switches don’t work. When they plugged a 75-watt bulb in various lamps or fixtures around the apartment, it would instantly blow out, the Asantes explained. “We had to use little bulbs made for the refrigerator,” said Kofi Asante, who has worked as a handyman for 13 years. While R-Y sent building staff to examine the issues, Asante says he could never get an electrician to actually fix the problem.

R-Y did not respond to requests for comment.

Tracey tenants suspect that a fire in January was also related to electrical problems. The blaze erupted on the 33rd floor in a kitchen, and its refrigerator had reoccurring power problems, according to residents.

Asante says he wouldn’t have needed a space heater in the first place if R-Y had replaced their bedroom window, which chronically leaked cold air. “The apartment never got warm,” he said. “My children would have to wear jeans and sweaters at night.”

The city Department of Housing, Preservation and Development (HPD) mandated that R-Y refit all of the apartment’s windows after an inspection in October, according to HPD records, which are available on the Internet. Asante said R-Y refused to make the renovation. “They said if they repaired my window, they’d have to fix all of them in the building,” he said.

The issue went to Bronx housing court in November, and Asante said R-Y was told to fix his windows. Still nothing happened.

Tenants have long complained that Tracey’s maintenance staff is slow with repairs and lacks adequate supplies. Three building supers were overheard in an elevator last week griping about the situation. “Why would anyone want to work in this place,” said one to the others.

The fire has left tenants boiling about the buildings’ conditions. A new tenant group held a standing-room-only meeting earlier this month, and they are petitioning for the official association to take a more aggressive stance with management.

Asante is getting a lawyer to pursue R-Y. He’s relieved that his family is safe, but the loss of everything — from his wife’s wedding ring to photos of their children — is a bitter pill to swallow. “We had just bought this couch from Seaman’s,” said Asante, standing next to a blackened shell in their old apartment. A few scraps of cloth and a heap of black ashes is all that’s left of their possessions.

The Asantes were planning to visit Ghana in May, and had amassed gifts for all their family members. Their presents, along with their passports, are gone. “All our money is going to this,” he said, referring to the new furniture and clothing his family desperately needs.

Filter Plant Committee Reconfigures Itself

By Jordan Moss

The committee set up by the City Council to monitor the construction of the water filtration plant in Van Cortlandt Park has a new look, leaving the immediate community’s sole representative owith concerns that it will lose a critical local perspective.

Lyn Pyle, who was assigned to be a “designee” by former Community Board 7 chair Nora Feury, participated heavily in meetings until now. She was relegated to the audience at the committee’s public meeting last week.

Led by Gregory Faulkner, the chair of Community Board 7, the Croton Facility Monitoring Committee has been reduced to include only the “principal” members outlined in a Council resolution (the chairs of Community Boards 7, 8 and 12, Council Member Oliver Koppell, the Bronx borough president and representatives of the Department of Environmental Protection and the Parks Department) or their designees, but not both. At earlier meetings of the body, about 20 people, many from the DEP, and some from other city agencies, would sit up at a dais before an audience. That group included principal members, designees and others. At last week’s meeting, at the DEP’s community office on Jerome Avenue, only Faulkner and one representative of each of the other officials and agencies sat at a U-shaped table at the head of the small room.

In an interview before the meeting, Faulkner said he didn’t think the move was as much a “restructuring as a clarification of the existing structure.”

“It [the committee] was never intended to be this unstructured group of folks, and you wouldn’t know who had the responsibility and who would be there to do what,” Faulkner said, adding that before he firmly took the reins of the committee it appeared as if the DEP were in charge. “I did not feel comfortable with the DEP supervising the process that monitored their involvement.”

And whereas prior meetings have focused primarily on controlling diesel emissions from on- and off-site trucks — a major concern of Pyle’s and some other members of the committee — Faulkner wants to see a greater emphasis placed on getting Bronxites jobs on the project.

In January, only 32 out of 129 workers (25 percent) on the project, which is now in the site preparation phase, were Bronxites. DEP representatives say that’s higher than the staffing on the recent construction of a Bronx courthouse. But Faulkner isn’t satisfied, and wants to ensure that the contractor (who has not yet been officially chosen) for the construction phase of the project buys into a process that ensures a greater representation of Bronxites and even Board 7 residents in the project’s work force.

Pyle, a founder of the COVE teen center, just a couple of hundred yards from the construction site, said she agrees with Faulkner that jobs for local residents are critical, particularly local young men in their 20s with few skills.

“Those guys can get into an apprentice program [and] be trained for the kind of jobs in the contract,” she said, adding that she would probably work with Faulkner on the issue.

Pyle also said that a previous meeting of the committee, where the new structure was hashed out, was “clearer, more energized [and] seems like it’s moving in a good direction.”

But she is still concerned about the lack of a local voice on the committee (Faulkner lives in University Heights.)

“I think there should be a community representative of the most impacted community because I think the perspective is different,” Pyle said. “If you live next to the hole they’re digging, you’ve got a really different perspective on what’s happening.”

Pyle is still Community Board 7’s designee, which means that she could participate in meetings when Faulkner is absent. And Community Board 7 voted unanimously at its last meeting to request that the City Council augment the Committee to include a community representative.

Meanwhile, Pyle said the jury is out on the new structure.

“We will see in the next few months, by their follow-through on the jobs issue and air quality issues, if restructuring the FMC is a move … in the interests of the immediate community,” she said.

Ed. note: The Croton Facility Monitoring Committee will next meet on Thursday, April 20 at 7 p.m. at the DEP community office, 3660 Jerome Ave.

Bronx Senior Meals Program Questioned

By Heather Haddon

City Council members are asking new questions about the Bronx Meals on Wheels pilot for homebound seniors.

Council Member Maria del Carmen Arroyo, the new Aging Committee chair, protested a cut to senior meals in a budget hearing this month. She also criticized the cost effectiveness of the controversial program in a statement issued after the hearing.

“To date, the Department for the Aging has not provided evidence that the Bronx pilot initiative has generated any savings,” the statement said.

The city Department for the Aging (DFTA) rolled out the pilot in 2004 to save money and increase capacity by consolidating providers and serving seniors frozen or reheated meals instead of fresh ones. A $5-per-meal spending cap was also imposed.

Every year since, the proposed city budget has included an $8 million reduction in meals spending, which theoretically reflects the pilot’s cost-savings if it was expanded citywide. The funds were restored last year, as is expected to happen again this budget season. Plans to expand the pilot to other boroughs have been consistently shelved. The Norwood News reported in 2004 that senior organizations in Brooklyn and Queens were well organized and adamantly opposed to the program’s expansion.

The Bronx overhaul was only slated to save $500,000 when it was conceived, according to the Council for Senior Centers and Services of New York City, an advocacy group. Given extensive start-up costs, advocates doubt it has achieved that. “I suspect they haven’t saved anything,” said Bobbie Sackman, the Council’s director of public policy.

Christopher Miller, a DFTA spokesperson, says they have achieved some cost savings, but he wouldn’t give an exact figure. He also said they have increased capacity. “We have eliminated the waiting list for meals in the Bronx,” said Miller, who believes 100 Bronx seniors had been waiting for service.

Sackman questioned whether the city has funded additional meals. She is also skeptical that the program can maintain the $5 cap, as DFTA has not increased its spending on senior program food for several years. “It can’t be sustained,” Sackman said.

Despite all the issues, DFTA has adamantly stood by Senior Options, the pilot’s official name. “Senior Options continues to let seniors choose flexibility and freedom through the meal type they select,” Miller said. Complaints spiked when the pilot began, but the Bronx’ numbers have returned to average city levels, according to DFTA tracking forms obtained by the News through a Freedom of Information request.

Senior Options appears to be losing political support, however. In January, Assemblyman Jose Rivera, who was a key backer, said he was unhappy with its results. “That commissioner can never come back to me,” Rivera said, referring to DFTA commissioner Edwin Mendez-Santiago. Rivera was also skeptical about the pilot’s increase in capacity.

Council Member Maria Baez had also supported Senior Options, which began when the Aging Committee was under her watch. She was replaced by Arroyo, and has taken over the State and Federal Legislation Committee. Some say that Baez lost interest in her former position.

Arroyo, who did not return several phone calls requesting comment, and Council Member Jimmy Vacca, an outspoken new leader, seem to be bringing fresh energy to the committee. Vacca acted as the board president of the Northeast Bronx Senior Citizens’ Center, a large organization on Bruckner Boulevard, for three decades.

An independent audit of Senior Options is now under way. It is expected to conclude this spring with a public report issued to be afterward, according to Miller.

Pinnacle Tenants Take Protest to Landlord’s Offices

By James Fergusson

Harlem residents, elected officials and community leaders converged last week on the midtown offices of the controversial Pinnacle Group to denounce the company’s practices.

The rally, held outside a plush 57-floor skyscraper near Penn Station, drew a few dozen protesters denouncing the rent hikes and harassment that they contend is Pinnacle’s hallmark.

Pinnacle has scooped up hundreds of apartment buildings across the city, including dozens in the Bronx. The Norwood News has written seven previous articles on the plight of tenants after their properties were purchased by the company, including scores of lawsuits, threatening letters, harassment and inflated improvement costs.

As Pinnacle employees looked on, protesters railed against them. “Pinnacle is trying to take our people from apartments that they have been in for 40 or 50 years,” said Luis Tejada of the Mirabal Sisters Cultural and Community Center, a Harlem organization that organized the rally. “Is this abuse?” he asked. “Yes!” the protesters responded.

Residents began organizing against Pinnacle in the winter, and elected officials are starting to respond. “They are making a concerted effort to destabilize our neighborhoods,” said Assemblyman Keith Wright, a Harlem representative during the rally. “This must stop.”

Wright claimed that a Pinnacle employee tried to indirectly pressure him to skip the protest. He rebuked the company for “picking on” tenants.

Other speakers, including former Councilman Bill Perkins, said the situation has wider implications. “If they are successful, it will open the door for multiple assaults,” he said, referring to other landlords who might move to low-income neighborhoods to buy properties and raise rents. “It’s very important that this example isn’t replicated.”

Advocates appealed to city officials to better police the practices of management companies. “You’ve got to do your job,” said Nellie Bailey, director of the Harlem Tenants Council.

Pinnacle’s public relations firm, the Marino Organization, dismissed the protesers’ allegations. “It is unfortunate that there are a number of baseless and simply erroneous charges circulating among tenants, public officials and within the community,” said the group in a statement. “We have offered to meet with today’s protest leaders on numerous occasions to discuss any issues they may have, but it seems they are motivated more by their own selfish agenda than finding out the truth.”

Local Saxophonist Chases Jazz Dream

By David Crohn

Albert Rivera could be forgiven for not being able to remember the piece he played at his first Carnegie Hall gig— he was only 12 years old at the time. And he’s played there twice since.

Now only 23, Rivera’s path from local prodigy to touring musician, recording artist and teacher has made for a thrilling trajectory, like a snippet of a solo played by his hero, jazz legend John Coltrane.

“It’s been fun, really cool,” Rivera said, in the relaxed, modest style that characterizes his personality but belies the passionate intensity with which he plays the tenor saxophone. The Norwood News sat down with him recently in his North Fordham apartment for a chat and impromptu jam session.

The first jazz rumblings stirred in him while he was a student at MS 118, where he played the clarinet in an orchestra. But even then, he said, “I felt like I was practicing for jazz.” Regardless of which instrument was in his hands, the talent shined through. After just a few years with the clarinet, he was playing the Bronx Borough-Wide Concert series, which showcases the skills of young local musicians. When that series hit Carnegie Hall twice in the late ‘90s, Rivera was onboard.

“It was just kind of random,” Rivera said of his finding his calling, since no one in his family showed this kind of affinity for music. He even found it a challenge convincing his mom that the life of a jazz musician would be the best career path. “She’s kind of old school,” he said.

But after borrowing a record from the Fordham Library, there was no going back: the flirtation with jazz became a lifetime love affair when he first heard Coltrane’s “Living Space.” “It just totally tripped me out,” he said. To this day, the modal style of jazz Coltrane and others pioneered in the 1960s remains his favored milieu as a composer and improviser.

His mentor at MS 118, Jeff Katin, encouraged him to switch to the bass clarinet for its relative similarity to the saxophone, and it was on this instrument that he played his third Carnegie Hall gig, with the New York Pops Orchestra. Then came the prestigious LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts.

The young saxophonist kept up his rigorous schedule of practicing six to eight hours a day, taught himself to read music and enrolled in New School University for the jazz program in 2001. Just as he was wrapping up his college career, he landed a teaching spot at the Litchfield Jazz Camp in Connecticut, a three-week summer program he had been attending as a student since 1999. This would prove to be a personal and professional milestone, as it provided the opportunity not only to develop his craft but to learn a new one: spreading his love for jazz to young minds.

Don Braden, the camp’s music director and an acclaimed tenor saxophonist who has toured with Freddy Hubbard and Tony Williams, described Rivera’s working style as a cross between his energetic improvisations and his mellow personality: relaxed, but with excitement and focus.

“He’s a really emotional player. He’s made a lot of progress,” Braden said. “Work ethic—aside from talent—is the most important thing ,and he’s got both. He’s a natural leader who can assess situations, and get people to do their best,” he said.

Braden added, in flawless jazz-speak, “He’s a real on-the-case kind of cat.”

He brings that same spirit to other teaching gigs at the New School and the Vermont Jazz Center Summer Workshop. When the News caught up with him, he was getting ready to head downtown to give an interactive concert for kids in Manhattan at the YMCA.

It was another chance, he said, “to show kids that if they’re into music there’s an alternative to hip-hop. And for a career, you don’t have to work at Burger King. You can follow your dream.”

Although he loves teaching, his real passion is playing and recording. He just finished his first studio CD, a collection of original compositions entitled Hope and Faith, with his band the Albert Rivera Quartet. His first album, First Steps, was a live recording culled from performances at the New School and Kavehaz, a Manhattan nightclub. If a big-time label came knocking, he’d be happy to sign, but right now he’s  “cool” just teaching, playing and distributing his albums through his Web site, www.albertriverajazz.com.

As for the future, another colleague at the Litchfield Summer Jazz Camp, professional jazz musician Jimmy Greene, was happy to weigh in. “His future is very, very bright if he dedicates himself,” Greene said. “And if he maintains a persistent focus, the sky’s the limit—and I’m confident he will do all those things.”

And best of all, he’s won his mom over. “She supports me now—I’ve even gotten her to come to a few of my shows,” he said with a laugh.

The Freedom of Information

By Editorial

Information is the lifeblood of our democracy. Yet, too few citizens know that they have the right to see much of the information that our government produces.

The American Society of Newspaper Editors and dozens of other press organization hope to change that with Sunshine Week, which begins March 12.

It can’t come soon enough, as more and more public information is being declared off-limits by government agencies, especially at the federal level.

Though it’s sponsored by press organizations, this is an event for all New Yorkers and Americans to participate in.

Why? Because secrecy in government is antithetical to American democracy and is harmful to its citizens.

Here’s a very local example. In the mid-1990s, the Norwood News investigated repeated delays in the construction of PS 20 on Webster Avenue. The school was supposed to take about three years to build, but ended up taking six. By filing a request under New York State’s Freedom of Information Law, known as FOIL, this newspaper was able to acquire documents that revealed severe problems at the site, including construction piles being driven into unstable parts of the ground, and lapses in oversight. We believe that our dogged reporting on this issue prevented further delays at PS 20 and provided an incentive for the city School Construction Authority to finish several other area schools on time in subsequent years. Much of that reporting would not have been possible without the FOIL.

Reporters all around the country use state and federal freedom of information laws to gather information that sometimes has life-and-death consequences. 

But it’s not just the Norwood News and other news media that have used FOIL requests effectively. Community organizations and private citizens have successfully used the FOIL to get public documents about a variety of community projects including the water filtration plant and the Kingsbridge Armory.

Many government agencies have begun to clamp down on information, using the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 as an excuse. We hope it will become clear to most Americans that withholding public documents and choking off the flow of information threatens our democracy. These are not the rights of newspapers or TV stations. They are the rights of all of us. And, as with a muscle, these rights will atrophy if they are not regularly exercised.

Education about the right to information, and how to secure it, should begin in grade school. Kids can learn how many housing code violations their apartment buildings have by looking up their address on the Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s Web site. They can look up how their precinct is doing on crime prevention by viewing the weekly CompStat reports on the Police Department’s Web site. And if there’s information that’s not available on-line, they can call the appropriate city agency. If that is unsuccessful, they can file a FOIL request. Sunshine Week would be a great time to try this out (more information at http://www.sunshineweek.org/). Feel free to call us if you need some guidance.

The state’s Committee on Open Government, a public entity that was formed in 1974 by the Freedom of Information Law, publishes a pamphlet entitled “Your Right to Know” that explains the FOIL and provides a sample letter to government agencies. Just call the Committee at (518) 474-2518 to request a copy. It can also be found on-line at: http://www.dos.state.ny.us/coog/Right_to_know.html.

Or e-mail us at norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org and we’ll send you one while supplies last.

We’ll give James Madison, the fourth U.S. president and shaper of the Constitution, the last word here.

“A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy — or perhaps both.”

Ed. note: This editorial is largely the same one we ran last year. But the issues are no less relevant or urgent.

 

Devoe Park Renovation Plan Unveiled

By David Cohen

Modern playground equipment, new shrubbery and more are on tap for the Devoe Park renovation project, which is expected to begin this spring and take about a year to complete.

Approximately $2.1 million has been allocated to the project from the pool of water bond money made available by the construction of the water filtration plant in Van Cortlandt Park, according to Barbara Stronczer, chair of Community Board 7’s Parks Committee.

According to Ashe Reardon, a Parks Department spokesman, the project includes redevelopment of the park’s east and west ends.

“We’ll be creating a tot lot on the park’s eastern edge, while the west section of the park will be completely renovated with new playground equipment and two showers,” Reardon said.

There are also plans to refurbish the existing comfort station, which includes a rest room and park house. The station will include improved accessibility for the handicapped as well as an upgraded central air system.

Work on the comfort station is expected to be completed after work on the east and west sections of the park is finished.

The plans were given a unanimous thumbs up by Board 7 after Stronczer presented the plan at the board’s monthly meeting last Tuesday. Board Chairman Gregory Faulkner said he looked forward to the project as an opportunity to boost area employment.

“We need to see some Bronx vendors and jobs provided to the Bronx,” Faulkner said. “Parks are key because those are immediate jobs being made available—but there has to be training first.”

Dinowitz Locks Horns With Landlord

By Heather Haddon

Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz is sparring with a real estate company after its officials denied treating two of his constituents improperly.

Dinowitz and Joel Wiener, the president of the controversial Pinnacle Group, exchanged sharply worded letters last week over cases in Riverdale and Norwood buildings. The two eventually spoke on the phone and agreed to meet and address the issues, but Dinowitz is still skeptical about Wiener’s management practices.

“He painted a nice enough picture,” Dinowitz said, “but I had another tenant complaint yesterday.”

Dinowitz contends that Pinnacle overcharged an 89-year-old tenant living on Henry Hudson Parkway and then gave his office the runaround for months as his staff tried to resolve the issue. Wiener said he never received any correspondence regarding the matter, and that the building is owned by his brother, not himself.

“Since Pinnacle is not the managing agent and is not affiliated in any way with the managing agent, Pinnacle was not notified about [the overcharge],” said the company in a statement.

But Pinnacle and the property’s management share the same address and supervising staff. “It’s all going to the same office,” said Terri Colon, a Dinowitz staffer.

Colon was also trying to help a tenant at 215 E. Gun Hill Road who received a hefty rent hike. Rent stabilization law allows for the series of retroactive increases, but they aren’t usually done all at once, according to Colon. When they didn’t receive it, Pinnacle sued the tenant.

Colon says that the case against the resident, who is disabled, was dropped because she was hospitalized.

Pinnacle officials denied they demanded immediate payment. “The amount is payable at the tenant’s option over 13 months,” said Pinnacle through a spokesman at the Marino Organization, a public relations firm.

But complaints about Pinnacle — which has snapped up hundreds of buildings in low-income areas citywide — continue to grow. In six previous stories, the Norwood News has documented the plight of tenants after their properties were purchased by Pinnacle, including scores of lawsuits, threatening letters, harassment and inflated improvement costs.

Over 100 tenants from Harlem and Washington Heights met two weeks ago in their campaign against the company. Pinnacle residents in Crown Heights also recently shared their concerns with state Senator Carl Andrews and a representative from the state attorney general’s office. In Harlem, Council members Inez Dickens and Robert Jackson have become involved.

“Fraud and harassment are against the law,” said Dickens, responding to tenant concerns about large capital improvement bills and allegations that property managers have bullied them.

Pinnacle continues to assert that its intention is to turn around troubled properties through large-scale improvements. Dinowitz remains wary. 

“I don’t have a problem with real improvements, but that’s not always the case,” he said, referring to landlords who make building renovations as a way to increase their rent roll.

Possibly in response to the growing concern, Pinnacle recently made a large donation to a Harlem youth group run by Reverend C. Vernon Mason, a lawyer involved in the controversial Tawana Brawley case in the 1980s. Project Youth Turn, which helps at-risk young people, recently received $500,000 from the company.

Dinowitz is skeptical. “I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but Philip Morris did the same thing,” he said, referring to the cigarette manufacturer. “They did bad things and made contributions in many communities to earn support.”

The Pinnacle spokesman said the company does not comment on their charitable giving.

Tracey Towers Blaze Leaves Tremendous Damage

By Heather Haddon

An explosive fire erupted at Tracey Towers on Feb. 26, leaving charred apartments and extensive damage to several floors of the complex. The three-alarm fire was the second blaze in less than a month at the troubled development.

The fire broke out on Sunday at 4 p.m. in apartment 24D located in the north tower. It was tamed in about an hour, but took 33 units and 138 firefighters to control because of severe winds that blew the blaze back inside. Gusts spread the fire up the building’s facade, knocking out windows all the way up to the 30th floor.

 

“The wind conditions were terrible,” said Mike Parrella, a Fire Department spokesperson. “The more water you put on it, the more it just [went] back in.”

Nine firefighters were injured, with two treated at Jacobi Hospital and one sent to Cornell Medical Center for second- and third-degree burns to his neck and ears. That firefighter was still recovering as of late last week. None of the injuries were life threatening.

Several tenants were taken away from the scene in stretchers, and one resident was treated for minor injuries. They were released that day.

Firefighters determined that a space heater located in the unit’s bedroom was at fault, according to Parrella. Tenants have often complained about insufficient heat at Tracey, but Don Miller, an R-Y spokesperson, said that new boilers installed this year have corrected the situation.

Fred Flemister, who lives next to 24D, said he saw light smoke in the hallway that afternoon, whereupon his neighbor ran out of her apartment with a phone. Some five minutes later, firefighters banged on his door. “It was insane chaos,” said Flemister, 57.

Patricia Quintyne, the other adjacent neighbor, saw thick smoke billowing out on her terrace. Then her window exploded. “I ran back to just get a coat and a bag, and the whole window was blazing,” said Quintyne, 60.

Upstairs, the woman living in 25D panicked as the fire spread to her apartment. “She almost collapsed,” said Rismond Agyemang, a neighbor.

The resulting destruction to Tracey is devastating. A day after the fire, a wing of the 24th floor was completely caked in black soot, with large puddles of muddy water and dirt scattered throughout the hall. Other than charred toilets and sinks, it’s hard to discern that 24D and 25D were ever apartments. A panoramic view of downtown Manhattan unfolded where the exterior walls and windows once stood; sofa and bedsprings were the sole vestiges of furniture. In 25D, the only personal remnants were burned videotapes and a bag of children’s shoes.

R-Y Management, which oversees Tracey, estimated that between 30 and 50 apartments in the 861-unit complex suffered damages. The Quintyne’s is one of them.

“I don’t know how this is going to get fixed,” said Alston Quintyne, looking through the massive hole in his living room wall. As Quintyne and his wife stood in a disarray of furniture, cold gusts blew through their shattered window.

After seven hours of vacuuming up the water in his apartment, Flemister’s things are still soaked. “Black water was running in by the gallon,” he said.

The Red Cross visited several affected tenants. Kojo Awusu, a neighbor to the Ghanaian family living in 24D (their name was not available at press time), thought they were staying in a shelter. The Quintynes have taken up with a friend at Tracey.

Maintenance concerns
With the blaze behind them, residents are fuming at what they see as management’s slow response to the fire’s aftermath. “You have every right to be angry,” said Gladys Franco, Tracey’s site manager, as a tenant yelled at her on the afternoon after the fire.

Earlier that day, a lone maintenance worker was sweeping up ashes in the stairwell. Some tenants had taken to mopping the hallways themselves.

Miller, the R-Y spokesperson, said that cleanup efforts began later that day. But residents are livid about the delay. As of late last week, some tenants still hadn’t gotten their windows boarded up. “They should have put up plywood already,” Flemister said.

Many residents contend that Tracey’s maintenance has deteriorated over the years. Flemister remembers some 12 years ago, when another fire broke out near his apartment, that management responded immediately. “They had an entire crew that got it cleaned up,” said the 30-year resident.

Tracey suffered from another fire on Jan. 28, which destroyed a unit’s kitchen and displaced its occupants. Residents suspect that that blaze was triggered by a faulty refrigerator, which had been repaired by building staff several times. Miller didn’t have more information about it.

Tenants are calling for an investigation into the cause of last week’s fire, and many are afraid that the next one could be coming soon. “It makes me worry,” Awusu said.

R-Y checks apartment smoke detectors and distributes fire prevention information annually, according to Miller. The building has fire hydrant hookups on each floor.

But fire safety can be severely compromised if tenants can’t get out of the building easily. After the incident, the three elevators going to the top floors were out of order. Residents often have to climb the stairs from the 21st landing onward (Tower A has 41 floors.)

R-Y started replacing Tracey’s 12 notoriously troubled elevators last year. But despite the work, many of the new elevators are out of order for days at a time.

Miller said R-Y is aware of the elevator issues. “It’s a pretty extensive project,” he said. “We want to correct that problem shortly.”

But that’s of little comfort to Betty Woodard, a tenant who lives on the top floor and suffers from a heart condition. “It’s absolutely disastrous,” she said. “If I ever have a medical emergency, how would someone get up to me?”

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