Andrea Peyser takes it to the "fat, prematurely gray, 32-year-old sports nut and professional loser" on Avenue C

From an Andrea Peyser exclusive today in the Post:

An East Village Romeo who passed himself off as a globetrotting NFL exec is accused of ripping off a beautiful, love-struck divorcee to the tune of a quarter-million dollars.

As he allegedly fleeced her and at least one other woman while posing as an accomplished 40-year-old winner, accused con man John Egan was, in reality, a fat, prematurely gray, 32-year-old sports nut and professional loser who lived with his parents on Avenue C, compulsively trolling the Web.

Now, Egan is the subject of a Manhattan District Attorney's Office investigation. The DA plans to seat a grand jury early next month on grand-larceny charges, said a law-enforcement source.

For beautiful Thea Miller, it may be too late. The San Francisco divorcee claims she was financially ruined and emotionally devastated by the beguiling grifter she met online.

"I was naive," Thea admitted.

The photo there was in the Post, taken outside his parent's Stuy Town home. Wonder if he took advantage of the free wireless on the Oval?

And it's not in that place that defaulted or anything

I was looking at a Craigslist ad for a four-bedroom duplex, with a backyard, laundry, etc., etc., in the East Village. One of those let's-get-nine-new-grads-to-live-here-and-party-while-we-make-Manhattan-ours places for $5,200. Anyway, I don't know, this last line of the ad cracked me up:

GREAT LOCATION, A FEW SHORT BLOCKS TO L TRAIN (NOT STUYVESANT TOWN)

[Image via Lux Living]

Let's not get ahead of ourselves: Stuy Town mistaken for Lillian Wald housing projects

From the Corrections & Amplifications in The Wall Street Journal:

A Tuesday Money & Investing article about New York's Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village apartment complex was incorrectly accompanied by a photo of the Lillian Wald housing project on Manhattan's Lower East Side, which was misidentified as the Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper property.

[Avenue D photo via Flickr. Stuy Town photo via.]

Stuy Town rally tomorrow

Via Stuy Town Lux Living:

Tishman Speyer Properties lose

From the Bloomberg wire:

Tishman Rent Rise in Manhattan Voided by New York’s Top Court

By Patricia Hurtado

Oct. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Tishman Speyer Properties LP, owner of Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village, Manhattan’s largest apartment complex, lost a tenants’ lawsuit in New York state’s highest court accusing the company of improperly raising rents.

The New York Court of Appeals in Albany said today the rent increase on about 4,350 apartments in the massive complex on Manhattan’s east side violated the law because it was built with city assistance and the building’s owners received tax breaks.

The ruling upheld a decision by a lower appeals court in Manhattan. That court ruled in March that Tishman and the prior owner, MetLife Inc., wrongfully deregulated the apartments by raising the rents because of a sale of the property in 2006.

Today’s decision means the companies might have to pay millions of dollars in rent rebates to thousands of tenants. State law entitles tenants to triple damages for illegal rent increases, lawyers in the case said.

On the increased criminal activity in Stuy Town

We've had several posts in recent weeks/months about the increased crime in the neighborhood. We're certainly not alone. Our friend Lux Living has chronicled the increased criminal activity in Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village. On Sunday, a 28-year-old woman was attacked outside 8 Stuyvesant Oval. As LL reported, "the tenant was grabbed from behind and dragged into the trees near the building's M level where she was choked. She was able to fight off her attacker and nearby neighbors made enough noise to scare him away. Unfortunately incidents like this one are becoming all too common in Stuy Town."

Sleepless in Stuy Town: Welcome to "Noise Town"

The good people behind stuyvesant town's lux living made note of the flier (to the right) at First Avenue and 20th Street. Sounds like a nightmare, not to be corny.

All is well at Stuy Town!

According to the Home Real Estate guide in today's Post anyway.

Says the article:

When it was announced in late 2006, it was one of those deals that knocked the wind out of you: The Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village complex - that beacon of middle-class Manhattan life - was being sold to Tishman Speyer for $5.4 billion. It remains the biggest real-estate transaction in New York City history.
Its residents were worried (68 percent of the 11,232 apartments in Stuy Town are rent regulated) and real-estate watchers wondered what would become of that massive 80-acre plot of land on the far East Side. Would some of the buildings be torn down and new ones go up? Would the place go condo? Would rent-stabilized residents be kicked out?
The short answer? None of the above. For many longtime Stuy Town residents, not much is different since the purchase. But that's not to say that there haven't been changes.
"We're focused on making it better," says George Hartzmann, managing director at Tishman Speyer. "That means focusing on the physical amenities, community activities, upgrading [apartments] and a lot of landscaping."

Yep, nothing but good things here! Keep going about your business!

Oh, well, there's this.

Meanwhile, back to the article. Sure, rents are going up...

"When I moved here, my one-bedroom apartment was $52.50," says Madeleine Sussman, who came to Stuy Town in 1949.
Sussman turned to her husband, Harold, who had moved to the complex a year earlier.
"What did you pay?"
"Fifty-eight dollars."
"Of course, that was a lot in those days," Madeleine adds.
Today, a one-bedroom in Stuyvesant Town starts at $2,950; two-bedrooms at $3,675; and three-bedrooms at $5,400. Peter Cooper Village (which has always had bigger and more expensive apartments) start at $3,250 for a one-bedroom, and $4,225 for a two-bedroom.
And those are the cheap units!

Golly! So what is a tenant to do?

And if the price sounds a bit high, Stuy Town has encouraged potential residents to take roommates.
Jill Durso, for instance, is splitting a one-bedroom with friend Christina Vargas.
"We converted it to a two-bedroom," says Durso. "They arranged to have a nice little wall put up, and we still have enough of a living room for our modest get-togethers."
Luckily, the one-bedrooms in Stuy Town are big. A typical one-bedroom measures around 755 square feet; a one-bedroom in Peter Cooper is around 947 square feet. (Two-bedrooms in Stuy Town average 943 square feet; at Peter Cooper they measure about 1,223 square feet.)
"I go to friends' apartments in the East Village, and they're paying more for the same amount of space," notes Durso.

The article does finally mention the rising rents, new money moving in (why not? they are wine tastings! ski trips! Hamptons shuttles!) and longtime residents getting the heave-ho, but...

That being said, one still gets the feeling talking to residents that the criticisms of Stuy Town are made out of love; longtime tenants are absolutely fanatical about the place - and not all of them object to newcomers.
"It's nice to see the young people," says Madeleine Sussman. "There was a population shift; most of the people who lived here together grew old together. And now it's still a comfortable place."
And new tenants seem to agree.
"I always said, it's the greatest suburb in New York," says Allison Kallish, who moved to a one-bedroom in Stuy Town two years ago. "I saw this parade of Little Leaguers, with bagpipes playing, walking through the [Stuyvesant] Oval back in April. How many suburbs do you see that in?"That being said, one still gets the feeling talking to residents that the criticisms of Stuy Town are made out of love; longtime tenants are absolutely fanatical about the place - and not all of them object to newcomers.
"It's nice to see the young people," says Madeleine Sussman. "There was a population shift; most of the people who lived here together grew old together. And now it's still a comfortable place."
And new tenants seem to agree.
"I always said, it's the greatest suburb in New York," says Allison Kallish, who moved to a one-bedroom in Stuy Town two years ago. "I saw this parade of Little Leaguers, with bagpipes playing, walking through the [Stuyvesant] Oval back in April. How many suburbs do you see that in?"