We've had some interesting things posted on the building's bulletin boards recently. One is potentially misleading, and the other is an interesting commentary on building security policies. Let's start with misleading:

This could ONLY be of value to tenants who have children under the age of 18. THIS IS NOT AN ADVERTISEMENT FOR FREE LUNCH FOR ADULTS! Nobody in this building is eligible for this lunch program - so I'm wondering what motivated staff to post it in the first place? I've had several tenants ask me about this sign in the last day. (By the way, I'm willing to bet that anyone in the building who's reasonably actively involved in parenting their kids already knew about this program - I've known about it for years; my son is in high school.)

And on to the next one:

Hmmm. Let's see now. This one isn't signed, which makes me wonder, has Ralph Garcia gotten so lazy that he's just phoning stuff in now? He probably called the front desk and told one of the workers to type this one up for him. Whatever. It's another case of too little, too late. We've seen memos like this before; people have been tossing crap out the windows for the past 5 years, probably longer. Hania Schwartz sent one of this around back in 2009; Dan Danaher notoriously had one of these parked on every tenant's door one day in 2010, and that one threatened legal action and police involvement. Tenants throw crap out the windows on the airshaft side of the building almost every night; you can't see it, but you can HEAR it clattering all the way down. It's a miracle that the skylights over the first floor haven't been totally destroyed yet. About six months ago someone was throwing wads of newspaper covered in feces out the windows over 23rd Street (how revolting). So my point is this, for starters: does staff really, honestly believe that posting memos makes this kind of behavior stop? If so, they may need check ups from the neck up. Please. This is just another example of what happens when you have a building with the (I'm trying to be polite) "diverse" population we do, and little or no regulation of the extreme cases. I know, I know, "everybody deserves a home", including drug addicts, drunks and mental cases, but when you decide to incorporate the level of "diversity" that we have here and NOT MONITOR the extreme cases, this is what happens. We have one tenant who regularly sleeps in the lobby, bragging that he gets the best sleep there because he feels "like a rat in a hole" up in his room. He's STILL occupying the lobby nearly every day despite being hauled off for evaluation not long ago (probably because he knows how to work the system and come off humble, meek and respectful in front of a psychiatrist when he knows he could get locked up in a psych ward for a long period of observation for letting loose with his usual angry, hate-filled monologues).

Security policies in the building don't regulate the people who really NEED regulating. All of us get punished for the outrageous behavior of a few; we no longer have full access to our own lobby and community room because a curfew was imposed after some tenants had altercations there. It wouldn't occur to security to ban the problem tenants and let the others continue using the space appropriately, quietly and peacefully. Our rights are being chipped away because we have to "tolerate" those who don't know how to live normally. A member of our front desk staff was recently attacked by a tenant who apparently had a long standing grudge against her; it happened at night when Mr. Garcia wasn't on premises, but I wonder what his response would have been even if he HAD been here. The front desk area wasn't always covered in plexiglass, protecting staff from tenants - which means that conditions are getting worse in the building. This, by the way, is in spite of the addition of more surveillance cameras.

If you want to read a longer, more detailed discussion about the lack of real security in the building, scroll down and find the post from February 15th of this year. And keep in mind that the stock answer you'll get from most staff members here is that tenants should call 911 if there is an emergency or problem. WHY DO WE HAVE A SECURITY DIRECTOR ON PREMISES if that is the standard way of dealing with an emergency?

What do YOU think about this? Again, please feel free to post comments - they can be anonymous.