To Gateway Management:
As you can imagine, many of our tenants are looking forward to the opening of the pool. The job you’ve done on the landscaping of the back lawn and around the pool is certainly impressive, a great improvement visually to the property. In addition, the atmosphere of the gym is greatly modernized and clean, which is much appreciated.
There are, however,tenants who have come to me with concerns and questions, which I will address here, as I did recently by phone with Paul Bruni.
(1) Pool Fees: For tenants who would ordinarily want to swim daily, charging $25 on a weekend per day and $15 on a weekday per day would add up to $500.00 per month, $1500 for a 3 month season. If you add to this the $600 gym membership fee, the total of $2100 is more than double the previous membership fee, (around $750.00) which included use of a pool year round.
(2) Towels: Even with these higher fees, tenants tell me that there are no towels. Paul mentioned that if the management decides to provide towel service, that would most likely be an additional fee. Again, for more than half the previous fee, towels were always provided. I can assure you that tenants do not want to bring their own towels and then go upstairs and launder them.
(3) Soap: Moreover, I understand that even though the gym has been open for a number of months, there is no soap in the showers. If the dispensers have not been installed, neither have small bars of soap been given to tenants. How are they supposed to take a shower with no soap and no towel? Contrary to what management may believe, tenants often do prefer to take a shower in the gym.
(4) Steam Room: I’m also told that the steam room has been out of commission for a number of weeks.
Taking all this into account, we believe the fees being charged for pool use are simply too high. Paul maintains that you have to limit the number of tenants around the pool to 100. I can assure you that in 30 years of my observation of the pool (which had a retractable roof and decks for suntanning), there were never more than 30 people total even during the summer around the pool. I don’t think you have to worry about having more than 100, but for those who do show up daily, $500 is high.
In any case, I hope you might adjust your fees, charging tenants something reasonable ($250 total for the summer use of the pool), which when added to the existing fee of $600, would approximate the former fee for full gym membership that always included year round use of a pool, which most gyms provide in this neighborhood. This matter, and other Gateway-related issues, will be addressed on June 6th, at our annual meeting at PS 276, which this year will be attended by fourteen elected officials, as we’re presenting a special award to Sheldon Silver for his service to Battery Park City.
Finally, I would point out that while the gym is much more attractive than it used to be, with areas provided for socializing, and a pool table, there are far fewer number of actual machines provided. In the “old” gym, there were a number of machines I used to use that have been eliminated. With all this in mind, I hope you will adjust your fees accordingly and provide amenities like soap and towels.
Thank you, Glenn
Gateway Plaza
TENANTS ASSOCIATION
Glenn Plaskin, President
Email: GPlazaTA@gmail.com
Visit Our New Website: GPTA.org
P.O. Box 3266
Church Street Station
New York, NY 10008