This column by Daniel Wollman appeared in Habitat Magazine, July/August 2016. If a building does not have a permanent Certificate of Occupancy (C of O), it can cause problems in the future for residents who may want to do renovations. Boards need to work with management to ensure that documentation is always kept up-to-date, to avoid the following expensive correction.…
Rosario Candela, the architect who defines 1920s Art Deco grandeur in highly desirous prewar buildings in New York, finally gets his due at the Museum of the City of New York’s exhibit, Elegance in the Sky: The Architecture of Rosario Candela. http://www.mcny.org/exhibitions With 75 buildings to his credit, most were built on Park Avenue, Fifth Avenue and Sutton Place. The…
Tax Plan’s Cap on Property Deduction: “Loss of American Dream,” says Wollman Causing consternation among home owners, the GOP tax plan’s new cap on property taxes effects coops and condos. Starting in 2018, the restrictions of the tax plan will be felt in states with high real estate values and multimillion dollar homes, such as New York and California. It doesn’t…
Q. A neighbor in my Manhattan co-op has occasionally been taking my newspaper or another neighbor’s newspapers from our door. When I inquired, management said it was a shareholder issue and would not get involved. Is this true? Or is there something that management could do? A. The newspaper presumably has your name and address affixed to it, meaning it is your…
The Expensive Surprises That Lurk Behind Walls by Frank Lovece in Habitat’s Bricks & Bucks: Click here to read the full article Sometimes, maintaining the facade of a building can be a bit like peeling an onion. The deeper you go, the more you find. After workers removed the outer brick layer of the exterior walls at 700 Park Avenue, the…