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April 1, 2014- By Steven E. Greer, MD
BatteryPark.TV has extensively reported on the feckless leadership of Glenn Plaskin and his Gateway Plaza Tenant Association (GPTA), as it allowed Gateway tenants to freeze in the winter and bake in the summer, racking up $1,000 electric bills, for decades. The most the GPTA could muster was to summons a few elected officials to voice their gripes, in the coldest of winter, when it was too late to prevent the freezing. Then, when the weather would subside, the angry Gateway mobs would become less irate.
This cycle recurred year after year. Meanwhile, GPTA leader Glenn Plaskin enjoyed a palatial apartment with the best heaters and AC.
However, the winter of 2013-14 was unusually long and brutal, triggering a mutiny in Gateway. A rogue bunch attempted to sue Gateway using a lawyer who also lived in Gateway. In response, Mr. Plaskin expressed his dissatisfaction with people going outside of his leadership. Nothing became of that potential lawsuit as the lawyer could not muster enough people to pay his fees.
Spotting an opportunity to stage a political comeback, local District Leader and lawyer, Jenifer Rajkumar has now started a class action suit against LeFrak, owner of Gateway Plaza. Recall, Rajkumar lost a bitter campaign against Councilwoman Margaret Chin, and has been laying low ever since.
Stay tuned.
Jenifer Rajkumar leads lawsuit against LeFrak
Glenn Plaskin’s palatial warm apartment costs what?
One year later, and no progress on Gateway Plaza freezing conditions
Why hasn’t Chin, who is paid some $125,ooo a year to help her constituents, done anything to help these tenants?
Is it because they don’t reside in Chinatown?
Is it because the Real Estate Board of NY’s contribution of $450,000 to get her elected has confirmed what we all know: that she is in the back pocket of the real estate industry.
I have seen the comments of pot and I must agree. This all has to do with end of stabilization. Which was once a beacon of middle class community has deteriorated into a transient population with conditions of a ghetto project.
The drug smoke seems more rancid than pot – perhaps crack or a meth lab.
The main activity seems to be in stairwell of 400 building between floor 23-27.
My neighbors have contacted gateway management but nothing has been done.
I cannot understand why there is no camera or at least a security guard walking up stairwell. My daughter developed asthma after 9-11 so now we are forced to open our windows every night between 8pm-1am when the pot begins.
I don’t live in Gateway, but find it sad how awful the conditions are for the people who pay good money to live there. It is managed (or NOT managed at all) like a building in the projects, with Lefrak the slumlord. Just look what happened at Lefrak City in Queens. It is funny to think that the former Police Commissioner Ray Kelly actually lives in that building. I wonder if he knows about the meth lab…..it certainly would explain all the pit-bulls in the building.
Kelly’s son lives there too, as does Randy Weingarten, head of the Teachers Union.