Residents of a six-story Manhattan building are in a fight over a slow elevator.
The New York Post says Orthodox Jewish residents want one of two elevators slowed down on Friday nights and Shabbos day to help them comply with rules of not operating machinery on the Sabbath.
But rent-stabilized tenants in 33 of the 86 apartments at 10 W. 65th Street say the loss of 83 seconds is not acceptable.
The state authority that regulates rents has sided with the rent-stabilized tenants in April. But the building’s landlord, Touro College, says that ruling violates civil rights laws and has sued the agency. Touro rents about half of the units to observant Jewish students.
The Division of Housing and Community Renewal declined to comment.
(AP)
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10 Responses
There’s something wrong with this article. The state authority has sided with the elderly tenants. The only elderly tenants mentioned are in favor of the Shabbos elevator. Touro says that ruling violates Civil Rights laws and has sued the agency. Is Touro against the Shabbos elevator? I can see that NOT having a Shabbos elevator would violate Civil Rights laws, but how would HAVING one do so?
Unless there is a law or contract requlating thedetails of the elevator service, the owner is within its rights to do whatever it wants. A government agency telling it what to do would raise all sorts of constitutional issues, since the sovereign can neither support or interfere with the owner’s religious preferences.
am i the only one thats confused?
“But rent-stabilized tenants … say the loss of 83 seconds is not acceptable.” So much for unbiased journalism. It is their 83 seconds and they don’t want to give it up for other people. You present that as not nice. You may be right. But they may do their shopping on Saturdays and not want to wait with heavy items. Or use wheelchairs that are hard to navigate in a short time frame. Or whatever. Just be upfront about writing from a bias.
Huh? I thought Touro College was on our side.
The article here is very unclear but at another website it was much clearer that the “elderly tenants” were not Jewish and were against the Shabbos elevator. The court sided with them. Touro sued in favor of the Yidden that wanted the Shabbos mode.
I strongly suspect that YWN has modified this article. The word “elderly” does not appear in it at all anywhere. I am almost positive that it did appear when I first read it a few hours ago, but it is possible that it was never there, and it is actually the #1 post that is confusing us.
Moderators Response: Wrong suspicion.
“Keeves”
The “original” article certainly said “elderly” as you suspected. I was confused when I read it initially. The article makes more sense now. If you look closely between the words “says” and “orthodox” there is an extra space which the editor neglected to delete when they deleted “elderly”.
Moderator, there is no shame in making a mistake; the shame is trying to cover it up and lying about it. We are human. We make mistakes.
Moderators Response: The mistake would be the AP (Associated Press). Once again, the word “elderly” was never added or removed.
Thank you, Moderator. If this article really is unchanged, then there’s nothing unclear about it, and I can’t remember why I got confused the first time I read it.
The word elderly was there.