Searching For 80 Clay Street

May 13, 2008 by missheather
Filed under: Greenpoint Magic, Williamsburg

I am certain a number of you are familiar with this property. Its address is 239 North 9th Street. As my colleague at the Gowanus Lounge has noted, not only is this (surprise!) going to be the site of (yet) another Karl Fischer masterpiece, but its farce of a construction fence presents very serious public safety issues. But neither 239 North 9th Street’s safety practices nor Karl Fischer are the purpose of this post. That is subject matter best left to the Gowanus Lounge to cover. Rather, I am intrigued by a sign gracing the fence at 239 North 9th Street.

This sign, to be precise. As you can see the owner of this property is “Greenpoint Management”. The physical address for this entity is listed as being 80 Clay Street.

Hannah found this sign at 261 North 9th Street. It lists 80 Clay Street as being the address of the owner as well. Very curious.

This site (120 S. 4th Street) is located at the corner of Bedford Avenue and South 4th Street. It too lists 80 Clay Street as being the owner’s address. Realizing we had a bona fide mystery on our hands, Hannah and I set out to learn more about 80 Clay Street. The first thing we did was look to it up on the Department of Building’s web site.

Per the Department of Buildings, 80 Clay Street is also known as 1114 Manhattan Avenue. When I first moved to Greenpoint I lived on Clay Street. As a consequence I know the addresses there quite well. Not satified with the Department of Buildings take on 80 Clay Street I decided to go down personally and see it for myself. Ready to learn more about the contact address behind three rather ambitious Williamsburg developments? If so, read on.

Gee, this looks awfully run down to the be headquarters for a Williamsburg development empire. What gives?

Oh that explains it— It’s part of the Greenpoint Hotel!* Silly me.

It was at this moment, dear readers, that all the pieces started to fall into place. If you look back at the sign gracing the fence at 120 South 4th Street you will notice it lists a telephone number: 718 349 8067. On a lark I decided to Google it. Here’s what I found.**

I made one last compelling discovery when I perused filings for 261 North 9th Street, 239 North 9th Street and 120 South 4th Street via the Department of Buildings Information System.

261 North 9th Street

239 North 9th Street

120 South 4th Street

All list one Menechem Stark as being the owner. If this name sounds familiar to you I’ll tell you why: he is one of the co-owners of the Greenpoint Hotel. Who knew this chap had such a stake in luxury condominiumville in Williamsburg? I certainly didn’t. I don’t know about you but I can hardly wait for these condominiums to get completed. I can only hope 261 North 9th Street, 239 North 9th Street and 120 South 4th Street will all sport the same caliber of “dedicated professionals” and “comfortable accommodations” that are to be had at their humbler cousin at 1109 Manhattan Avenue.

Miss Heather

*Which, for the record is located on the southwestern corner of Manhattan Avenue and Clay Street. The Department of Buildings might want to look into that.

**Be sure to check out this other select morsel too. It would appear that 315 Siegel Street’s ownership also traces back to the Greenpoint Hotel. If the following quote is any indication, it sounds like one swinging place:

On July 30th, residents found bloody footprints in the building

Bedbugs are also mentioned. Where do I sign?!?

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Comments

4 Comments on Searching For 80 Clay Street

us_vs_max on Thu, 17th Jul 2008 12:25 pm

Oh my. Where to begin?! I live in one of Greenpoint Management’s buildings, located at 100S 4th st in Williamsburg, right next door to one of the sites listed here (120 S 4th). Menachem (Max) is a COMPLETE douchebag who has NO right to continue taking my rent checks and putting it into new buildings while we still live with (3 1/2 years later) WOODEN DOORS on our building. WOODEN DOORS that are CHAINED together! WTF?! I have stories for DAYS about these guys and how they run their properties and treat their tenants, their lies, neglect and empty promises. From day 1 we have had problems and I am happy to say I am FINALLY getting out as of next week. But the problems will continue for anyone moving into the place. This is the post on craigslist for an apt in our building:

http://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/nfb/749617786.html

Information listed that I can PROVE is false is:

“+ 3 BEDROOM BUILD ALREADY!!!” These are CONVERTED bedrooms, 2 w/o windows and all w/o closets.

“CLOSETS!!” There’s only one closet in the entire apt.

“*****SUNDRENCHED ROOMS*******” Windows only in 3 rooms (of 6)

“TRASH SHOOTS ON EVERY FLOOR!!” Completely false! There isn’t a single trash shoot ANYWHERE in the building. They promised this when we moved in 3 1/2 years ago but instead decided to convert the “trash room” into another set of apartments.

The picture of the roof view is VERY old, before the roof was turned into a trash heap w/ no furniture.

The “beautiful tiled bathroom” is bullshit as it was stained black/brown upon moving in (we were the first tenants).

Beyond all this false information I could tell you many things that are unacceptable/illegal in the building. After living there for 2 years, we found out that they had JUST gotten a Certificate of Occupancy, and that we had been living there illegally all that time. Apparently we should’ve asked if we were legal to live there instead of assuming we were. Silly us! There were many things promised upon moving in that were never fulfilled. We still have a non-functioning sprinkler system, and the floor boards which were ripped out due to leak-causing buckling (it basically rained in our bedrooms everytime there was a drop of water from the sky) are still torn up two years later. They also have a complete lack of respects and consideration for any of their tenants. The list could go on and on and on, but those are pretty major if you ask me. We’ve thought about legal options, however, we’re pretty much exhausted at this point from dealing with them. Beyond that, the reason we stayed is because it costs an arm and a leg to move in NYC, so if we couldn’t do that, we probably don’t have the legals fees either. 🙂

I would love someone to take these assholes down.

aenki on Mon, 23rd Nov 2009 8:25 pm

I see that your posting is already pretty old, but I came across it by googling the name of our current landlord Max (Menachem Stark). Nothing that I read here, was news to me – we went through all of this ourselves and I totally agree that I hate paying my monthly rent check to him – he totally does not deserve it. Our “home” is run by 1140 Enterprise LLC, but the address is still the Greepoint Hotel, and the behavior, too. Negligence, Ignorance and lies are something we experienced from day one on. I would not recommend an apartment in our building to my worst enemy. And it happens all over again to every single tenant, who is moving into our gut-renovated building with brand new steel appliances, cable-ready, beautifully renovated hard wooden floors. Nothing is ever true. We moved into a construction space, and had to leave our furniture in the neighboring apartment. We then lived for 2 weeks without a kitchen sink, counter tops, 3 days after moving in, we had a complete blackout (we later learned that the electrician had already left the job some time ago, and never came back) Two weeks later, the “beautiful” hard wood floor buckled up, and we found out that they simply did not put ply wood underneath (until today it is not done). We also discovered that there is no ceiling in the basement, where we live right on top (Ground floor). I could go on and on and on. But I am sure you get the point.

There must be a way of stopping this guy!

sweater factory on Wed, 6th Jan 2010 1:26 am