Status quo from yesterday’ report.

Still running cold water throughout the building, no elevator service, no heat or hot water and no electric in the A section and some apartments in B & C near the A section.

Management reports that they are still on line to have electric restored to the whole building and some semblance of heat and hot water restored to the whole building by the end of this weekend.

Although there is some progress on elevators, the time line on their restoration is still a little open ended. We will probably not see any elevator service until the latter part of next week. Hope to have a more definitive report after today’s meeting.

Electric blankets have been distributed to those who have requested them and are home. We do not leave any at the front door. If you are generally not around, contact me to make a connection at another time.

Trash

If you can take your trash down to the dumpster in the inner courtyard parking area, please do so. If not, just leave it outside your door in a well –sealed bag.

Salvage Art

We are trying to work out a salvage plan for art in the basement. Hope to have those plans finalized today.

FEMA

After today’s meeting in the community room at 3, Congressman Nadler and Speaker Quinn’s office are coordinating to have 5 of their staff members with lap tops and internet service on site so that residents can start to sign up with FEMA for disaster relief. There is not guarantee of what you would get but in order to get anything, you have to be registered with FEMA. We strongly urge you to do that registration.

We will also do a FEMA registration at 1 PM on Tuesday in the community room.

Much to do on the ground here. Will update you again tomorrow.

George Cominskie

Westbeth Update
Thursday Afternoon November 08, 2012
Back at Westbeth – Good to be home, sad to see the hardships many have endured.
Today’s update from Nancy Gabor, Erica Fae, Valerie Ghent and Westbeth Corp FB page
General Notes
-Running cold water throughout building
-No heat or hot water throughout building
-Still no electric in A section and parts of B & C near A section
-Sketchy reports on phone service – Verizon service is down and may be until December. Will follow up on that report. Some FIOS phone service people do have phone service.
-Do not use trash chutes. Leave trash outside your door in a well-sealed plastic bag.
-Electric blankets are being distributed to those who requested them. If you have a need, see me or Nancy at today’s meeting.

Daily update meetings continue in Community Room at 3 PM.

More Specific Notes
-Management hopes to have heat and hot water up by end of weekend. No way to tell right now how efficient or effective it will be but it will be an improvement over the current situation.
-Elevators: Hope to be back on line within a week and even then, it may only be the Freight car in the A section that is operable at first.

-New transformers that will provide electric to the rest of the building should be in place and operable by end of the weekend. Will update you on progress in next report.
-Basement clean out work is continuing. No tenant can go to basement without first making arrangements with management. Studios in basement need to be cleaned out ASAP but all discussions on your work/possessions in the basement need to be taken up with management.
I am overwhelmed by the help and kindness of our Westbeth community and many strangers. Thank you all!
More tomorrow.
George

Westbeth Update

Tuesday AM November 06, 2012

A Collection of reports from Nancy Gabor, Deb Travis, Erica Fae and Wesbeth Corporate FB page

Today is Election Day………………………………………….Go out and vote!

If you are a Westbeth voter, we are voting in our community room.

For those looking to help us

-We do not need donations of clothing, send those to the Rockaways or Staten Island.
-We could use electric blankets. If you bring them to the building, please give them to the guard to pass on to our social services coordinator, Oliva Duerr.

-Besides the obvious challenges of living with little or no services, the most difficult task is hauling water up the stairs (our elevators are still not working!) to be used for sanitation. If you are up to carrying buckets of water up the stairs, that would be the most helpful today.

As of this morning, there is still no water, heat or working elevators in the building.

Building information sheets have been posted on all floors on the bulletin boards near the elevators and in the community rooms.

Anyone needing an electric blanket should contact ericafae@live.com ASAP.

Deb Travis is posting a listing of floor captains on every floor and in the community room and gallery. Tenants should email or leave a note for their floor captains if they need anything or have questions. We still need floor captains on 7th floor east and 8th floor west. Anyone interested should email Deb their name, phone number and apartment number to westbethvp@gmail.com

The next community meeting will be at 3 PM in the Westbeth Gallery

More specifics from the Westbeth FB page:

On electric:
Electricity has been resorted to more apartments. If you are not in the A section and do not have power, please let the security desk know. For those in the A section, repairs will still take days before you will get electric.

On water:

“Our water pump company says they are still on track to deliver at least one working pump on Tuesday or Wednesday. Assuming no glitches in the hookup or wiring, we may well have running water in the building before Thursday. Hot water is another issue, but we have made significant progress in finding a rollup boiler. There are several permitting issues that will need to be addressed because the boiler we have lined up is not the type usually used in New York City, but with any luck we might have it working before the end of the weekend.”

On heat:
“The heating situation is not as clear. We have had the boiler electrician and plumber in and they now know what needs to be done, and they are beginning to put a timeframe on the process, but not with any definitiveness. It seems as if we are speaking in terms of many days or a few weeks, but the vagueness on the contractors’ part is telling. We’ll keep you up to date as the process continues.”

On the elevator:
“The elevator repair company came today, and their assessment was much less optimistic than we had hoped. The doors and cars of the two elevators in the West Street lobby were beaten out of shape by the water’s onslaught and will require major work to make safe and operable. The freight elevator is in less-bad shape, and may be the first one to be restored – we should know more by Tuesday. The elevators in the Bethune Street lobby are more of a problem – their pits were among the last places in the building to dry out (and they are not exactly “dry” even now). At least one of those elevators’ doors was damaged by debris thrown against it, and there is circuitry in all the pits that will need to be replaced.”

On the intercoms:
“We have also learned that some tenants have never learned to use the new house intercoms. Because we assumed that this new system was working and everyone could use it, we were relying on it as a means of communication from tenants, especially in an emergency. We have made copies of the instructions for using them and put them at the front desk and in the Community Room. We have also asked everyone to try to call the front desk, and to let us know if you are not successful.”

The next community meeting will be at 3 PM in the Westbeth Gallery
Now go vote!

From my last full day in Ohio,

Geo

Westbeth Update

Monday AM November 05, 2012

The challenges continue for Westbeth but the kindness, generosity and hard work of Westbeth volunteers, staff, elected officials and friends has also been tremendous. Thank you all!

Now to specifics:

Our Polling Place for Tomorrow – Stays at Westbeth

There is still confusion on this matter if you look on line. On the BOE web site where you find your polling place, if you fill in our address it says you will vote at PS3 but that is as 11/4. The posting on their site at 12:36 this morning (11/5) shows that only 4 sites in Manhattan were moved and we are not one of them. Erica Fae got confirmation from the BOE that Westbeth will remain the polling site. Our elected officials have also gotten confirmation from the BOE that Westbeth will remain the polling site. If there is any change to this we will post it at once but for now, count on voting at Westbeth.

Reports below are gathered from Westbeth Corp FB page and WARC members Deb Travis, Erica Fae and Vicki Blankenship

-Electricity slowly coming back to residential apartments but portions of A section and B and C apartments close to the A section may not receive electric for several more days.

-The search for temporary boilers for heat and hot water continues. The large size of the building makes the search to find boilers that can accommodate the whole building harder.

-Elevator company and consultant will be in today to begin their assessment. As of today, it is likely that the C elevator (the freight car) will be the first one on line.

-Erica Fae is coordinating distribution of donated electric blankets and will be working through Oliva Duerr for their distribution. There is a supply of donated, used blankets in the community room for anyone to use.

Directly from the Wesbeth Corp page BASEMENT

“At the end of the meeting we announced a plan for the basement cleanup. We escorted basement tenants in small groups to their spaces so they could see what they are up against, and also showed the sculpture studio users the terrible situation there. Starting Monday, we will alot blocks of times to tenants to begin work salvaging what they can from their spaces and the Sculpture Studio. They will have to sign waivers of liability, enter at their own risk, and be accompanied by a Westbeth staff member at all times. The need for speed is great: The basement needs to be cleared and cleaned as soon as possible before its smells become even worse and other health problems begin to arise. Westbeth anticipates beginning the cleanup of the public spaces and its own areas by midweek, although we don’t yet have an idea how long that will take.”

-There will be a building meeting today at 3 in the community room. There may not be a meeting on Tuesday since the community room will be the polling site. Future meetings may be moved to a later time to accommodate those who work outside the building.

WARC is organizing floor captains among those who are still in the building to check on those still in residence.

WARC will be posting brief updates at every elevator for those who can’t attend the meetings.

Love from Ohio,
George Cominskie

The beautiful exhibition by Jean Promutico has re-opened. Continue reading →

Westbeth Update
Sunday AM November 04, 2012

I have been in Ohio for over 12 days so all the reports I get come from people on the ground at Westbeth. I apologize if any information is misinterpreted or incorrect but I am filtering and reconfirming as much as I can.

Let me correct something from yesterday. Electric is on in most of the building but it is not on in the A section or in some apartments near the A section. They are working on it now but there is no definitive answer on when they will have electric.

Electric service does NOT automatically give us elevators, water or heat. Right now we only have electric in most of the building but none of the other three services.

From the Westbeth Corporate FB page:
The pump company came today and immediately saw, given the extent of the damage to the pumps, that onsite repair was not possible. They have taken them, along with the pumps for the hot water system, back to their shop, and hope to have some or all of them back in place by Tuesday or Wednesday. We also know that we can supply power to those pumps.

The contractor for the oil burners, the critical part of the boiler machinery, came to the building after 7 p.m. to survey the situation. His initial reaction was encouraging — the burners can quite likely be repaired and he will return when an electrician tells him it’s safe to begin taking them out of the boilers. His hope was that he would relatively quickly be able to get two of the burners working, which would allow us to provide hot water and, possibly, some heat, sooner than we expected.

The boiler work depends not only on the burners, but on the electrician (not the same one doing the restoration work;) and the plumber, who needs to ensure that the oil supply pipes are intact and that the system supplying water to and from the boilers is working. We expect both the electrician and plumber be at Westbeth on Sunday. We also are anticipating needing pumps for the fuel supply.

We are also hopeful that elevator service can be restored in a reasonable number of days. The equipment for them is on the roof, not in the basement, so it should mostly be intact. As of 9 p.m. this evening, (Saturday) there was still significant water in the pits at the bottom of the elevators in the Bethune Street lobby; work on them can’t begin until that’s taken care of. We received more pumps today, and with the restoration of electricity we hope to have that accomplished some time on Sunday. The A section elevators are more of mystery, and we might have a better handle on their condition by the end of tomorrow.

Let’s talk about some good news!

Erica Fae, our Community Relations Chair, has been in constant contact with the Board of Elections about Westbeth remaining a poll location. As of this morning, we are still listed as the poll location for our building. Once we have a definitive word on this we will post it.

Erica is also working to turn the Community Room into a warming center. More details on that will be posted in the community room. There is a daily update meeting held by management in the community room at 3PM. Attend if you can. WARC will be posting daily updates on each floor by the elevator bulletin boards on each floor but these will only be synopsis of what we know. If you have a question or concern that needs immediate attention, it is best to attend the 3 PM meeting and address it to management.

Yesterday, TJ Luty from God’s Love We Deliver, purchased and then helped distribute 20 electric blankets throughout the building with Erica and Maya. Thank you TJ and GLWD!

WARC is also trying to find a floor captain (or captains for the larger floors) to coordinate supply and relief efforts.

Congressman Nadler’s office dropped off 12 cases of bottled water and 140 MRE (Meals Ready to Eat) last night. You can check at the desk to see if any of those supplies are still available.

Maybe some of the best news – Very happy to report that Speaker Quinn’s office has put in a request to both HPD and to HUD for two emergency boilers so that we will have heat and hot water. I know her office is moving heaven and earth to get them on site ASAP. These will serve as a stop gap measure until our boilers are repaired.

We are also trying to get a water truck to supply water for your drinking and sanitary needs.

I know that nerves are wearing thin, that some tempers have flared and this is overwhelming for some.
Please remember to be kind and patient. The staff is overburdened and has been stellar during this catastrophe. The WARC members and other volunteers are doing this even as they suffer under the same circumstances that you do.

I cannot get home soon enough to help with these relief efforts. However, I have a job to do here, so I will finish my assignment in Ohio and then come home to the place we all love, Westbeth.

Love from a now snowy Ohio,
George Cominskie

Sunday Nov 4, noon – 2 pm

We just received word about this discussion on salvaging wet art and cultural materials presented by AIC Conservation Team. It will take place at the Museum of Modern Art on East 54th St at noon.

Hopefully there will not be a need for too many more of these…

My reports come from The Corporate Westbeth Page on FB, our elected officials, Lisa Rifkin and from Deb Travis who I can’t thank enough for keeping me updated and handling all the requests I have sent to her and then taking on another dozen tasks as well.

Good News – Electrical Power was restored at 4:30AM. Water service has not been restored yet.

I just tried to call the land line in my apartment but that service is not restored either.

From the Westbeth Corporate FB Page:
We have no news on the heating front. Our boiler contractor should have its personnel at Westbeth soon to begin the process of determining how much damage was sustained and what will be entailed in making the system operable again. It is most likely, however, that we are looking at a number of weeks before heat will be available.

Tenants and staff have detected the odorous consequences of Sandy. The smell is the result of the mixing of sea water, mud, debris, and all the various materials the basement held: Artists’ working materials; the contents of Westbeth’s maintenance shops, such as paints, solvents, petroleum products, and detergents; whatever else got loose from tenants’ rented spaces and the sculpture studio; the contents of the laundry room; and all the miscellaneous stuff a basement contains. Fortunately, we have not detected any sewer gas, which can be dangerous both to breath and because it is combustible. If you can smell the basement odor in your apartment, it is probably best to have a window and allow fresh air to enter your space. The basement under the best of circumstances is hard to ventilate in the best of times, and, as a consequence, some part of that smell is likely to linger for many weeks.

Reports that Deb has gathered:

Rent: since no rent stubs have been distributed and Phipps cannot handle receiving the checks, Matthew asks that we wait until next week to pay the rent.

Community Room: we are not reserving the Community Room until further notice. It is open from 10am to 8pm to charge devices. (Which might be irrelevant now)

Basement: no tenants are allowed in the basement. Once the electricity and basic services are restored, management will coordinate with affected residents for the inspection and removal of property.

Dumpster: if you have garbage that needs to be disposed of, please bring it to the dumpster in the inner courtyard garage area.

Food: please contact Olivia if you know anyone who is unable to leave their apartment for food. Meals on wheels is providing service in our area.

State of the basement: a few inches of water remain to be pumped. They will be using immersion pumps to get to some of the more difficult areas.

The Council has labeled the doors of tenants we know have left in order to prevent worry. Please label your door if you leave and please label the door of anyone you know to have left.

From Lisa Rifkin:

Lisa called the Board of Elections and got this information.

Right now it is still expected that the Westbeth Community Room will be the polling place on Tuesday, November 6th.

For those of you who have relocated and are not sure you will be able to get back on Nov 6th, you can go and cast an absentee ballot. Everything is very fluid there so we think you should call the BOE before you go there to be sure they are sticking with these dates and times.

Board of Elections
Operations temporarily relocated to:
450 West 33rd Street, 10Flr
New York, NY 10001
Tel: 1. 212.465.0503
Fax: 1. 212.465.2135

This might change when power is back. We don’t know if their service has been restored. As of yesterday, these were the times they were saying they would be open. I would reconfirm that before going. There is a possibility the location and times have changed.

Saturday, Nov 3rd 9AM to 6PM
Sunday, Nov 4th 9AM to 6PM
Monday Nov 5th 9AM to 5 PM

There have been many requests about our senior tenants and food and water. Olivia Duerr has coordinated food deliveries to all who are in need. Yesterday, both Congressman Nadler and Speaker Quinn’s offices delivered water and non-perishable food to the front desk. Some of those supplies are still down at the desk if anyone is in need.

Off to start the GOTV drive here in Ohio.

More tomorrow, when I hope everything is restored and these updates are not needed.

Love from Ohio,

George Cominskie

1. There is generator operating in the community room from 10 AM to 8 PM so people can recharge their cell phones. Some of you who have been reaching out to me should be able to reach your loved ones by cell in a day or two.

2. Port-a-sands are now on site and will be available from early morning to 10 PM.

3. Additional generators arrived yesterday and they will be used for lighting in the basement and to pump the water out of the basement.

4. ConEd says they will restore power to the building by 11 PM on Saturday night. However, Westbeth will need to check all of our electric mains, fuses and circuit breakers before electric service is restored to the building. Until everything is inspected, we won’t have a definitive answer to when services are restored. However, this is the timeline as they see it now:
-Westbeth could get power back as early as Sunday but more likely early next week
-The elevators and cold water will follow shortly thereafter
-Hot water later next week
-Heat and laundry may take as long as three to four weeks to be restored.

5. All of the above are guesstimates. Until everything is physically inspected, they will not know the full extent of the damage. Those inspections can begin today when the water is pumped out of the basement.

6. Some Westbeth residents who have gone to other places have asked me about voting. Our district leader, Brad Holyman is checking on where you can vote by absentee before Tuesday. I know Westbeth is trying to be the polling place as usual for Tuesday but I do not have a definitive answer if that has been determined yet.

Thanks again to our staff at Westbeth who continue to care for the residents, to the management for spearheading the restoration of services, to our elected officials who are constantly monitoring what is happening at Westbeth and providing assistance where they can and to the many Westbeth residents who are caring for each other.

With love from Ohio,
George Cominskie