The thermometer has hit 50° and Fine Fare has its spring window ready:
All posts by Cooperatively Yours
Video: Community room input can still make a difference
LESEC Winter Warmup Sunday at 1 pm
The Lower East Side Ecology Center runs several worthwhile programs, including composting workshops and e-waste recycling events, through the city. We’re lucky that they are located nearby, in the East River Fireboat House located at what would be Grand Street and the East River.
If you’d like to learn more about their programs, or just would like to meet some neighbors and see photography by local artist Daniel Root, consider yourself invited to LESEC’s “Winter Warmup” on Sunday, March 8, at 1:00 pm. (They would appreciate if you would RSVP to info@lesecologycenter.org.)
Community room demolition begins despite concerns
Demolition has begun in the community room, despite cooperators’ wishes that the project be delayed for more input.
The $73,000 project was approved by the board over objections from the house committee. Cooperatively Yours held a working session last week to get ideas for the room’s design as well as the policies that govern its use. A quick survey of cooperators showed support for the basic project outline but also concern for the lack of resident input.
Those ideas and concerns were forwarded to board members — including Larry Goldman who has taken the lead on this project — but have been met with no response except the sound of demolition.
DOT will consider pedestrian safety on Cherry Street
The Lo-Down reports that NYC Department of Transportation has agreed to look into measures to increase pedestrian safety on Cherry Street between our coop and Corlears Hook Park.
Michael Marino and Friends of Corlears Hook Park have led the way, bringing suggestions to our community board and starting a petition to bring support to the measures. Consideration will go to removing parking spaces that block sightlines at the corner of Cherry Street and FDR Drive, installing a traffic light at that intersection, and creating a mid-block crosswalk right at the entrance to Corlears Hook Park.
Do you know Harold Jacob’s email address?
Good news! Management has now published individual email addresses for each member of the staff. If you have a general question and don’t know who to reach out to, you should still use the email address contact@coopvillage.coop. But if you do know whom you want to talk to, here are the staff email addresses:
| Harold Jacob | General Manager | hjacob@coopvillage.coop |
| Shulie Wollman | Asst. General Manager / Operations | swollman@coopvillage.coop |
| Sol Wenig | Controller | swenig@coopvillage.coop |
| Harry Packer | Assistant Controller | hpacker@coopvillage.coop |
| Elliot Caplan | Manager | ecaplan@coopvillage.coop |
| Galina Palis | Assistant Manager | gpalis@coopvillage.coop |
| Evelyn Perez | Accounts Receivable/Payable | eperez@coopvillage.coop |
| Helen Lutenberg | Accounts Receivable/Payroll | hlutenberg@coopvillage.coop |
| Shifra Weitz | Receptionist | sweitz@coopvillage.coop |
Maintenance
Here’s a really useful online tool that’s been around for a couple of years that you might not know about: an online maintenance request form. You’ll get a confirmation email and a call back pretty quickly to make an appointment. (If you have a maintenance emergency, they still recommend that you give them a call: 212-677-5744.)
House Committee
As long as we’re cataloging East River contact information, the house committee still has just one general email address — ERhousecommittee@aol.com. You may not get a reply right away, but someone usually responds in a reasonable amount of time.
Board of Directors
That leaves our board of directors as the only difficult-to-reach set of principles at East River. Their recently delivered newsletter lists contact@coopvillage.coop as their online contact, but that email address actually goes to someone at the management office. The newsletter also suggests that you can mail correspondence to their attention at 530 Grand Street, which is a nice old-fashioned touch. Cooperatively Yours will be pushing to get a more direct line of communication with the board.
Directors’ newsletter
A newsletter from the board of directors was slipped under doors today, recounting board action so far this year. If you didn’t get it, click below for larger images:
Quick survey: community room input
This survey will be open for 48 hours only, until noon on Thursday.
For some background, read a recap of last night’s open meeting and see our post about the $73,000 renovation plan already approved by the board of directors.
Feel free to leave any other comments below.
Open Meeting on Monday to help fix the community room
Join us Monday, February 23 to discuss the upcoming renovation of East River’s community room.
We’ll be meeting to determine cooperators’ priorities for the space and to solicit design ideas that will be presented to the board of directors.
Silver indicted
Assemblyman Sheldon Silver was arrested last month on the basis of a complaint written by the U.S. Attorney’s office. Today a formal indictment was handed down by a federal grand jury for the same charges.