Towerview Apartments

[PRH]

I've been a landlord and I have to wonder why the tenants didn't move out if the Towerview was as bad as the paper described?  

Maybe it's because the rent was consistent with the conditions.

Or maybe the newspaper brought their own rats and trash and junked the place up for another Whirled do-gooder article.  There's nothing I wouldn't put past the newspaper....they've lost their credibility with me a long time ago.

Maybe the tenants of the Towerview prefered a roof over their head than to sleep on the sidewalks.

My point is, when you don't have much money, you don't have much housing choice, but anything is better than sleeping down by the railroad tracks or the river....something a few of you on this forum should try, before you pass such self-righteous judgement on the Towerview.  

Sometimes I wonder where some of you Tulsa Now posters got your brains from.  The tenants of the Towerview are worse off now than they were...but you do-gooders now feel good about yourselves, and that's all that matters to you.  Never mind the people who have been displaced to the streets.

And if the Towerview was operated this way for the past 20 years, why was it all of the sudden so important to condemn it?  Could it be because the new owner is not contributing enough money under the table?

[jdb]

"...wonder where all you Tulsa Now posters got your brains..." - prh


I take exception with the word "all" vs. "some".

Or maybe you were hoping to snag a few bystanders with that loose cannon of lazy diction?

jdb!

[PRH]

quote:Originally posted by jdb

"...wonder where all you Tulsa Now posters got your brains..." - prh


I take exception with the word "all" vs. "some".

Or maybe you were hoping to snag a few bystanders with that loose cannon of lazy diction?

jdb!

Great ccott, you're right!  

I'll change it right now.

[rwarn17588]

PRH wrote:

My point is, when you don't have much money, you don't have much housing choice, but anything is better than sleeping down by the railroad tracks or the river....something a few of you on this forum should try, before you pass such self-righteous judgement on the Towerview.

<end clip>

Thanks, but I'll stay in my house. As Bob Dylan said, you don't need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

The fact is, there were plenty of motels in the city that offered rooms for the same price and lower than the $125 a week that tenants had to pay at Towerview. (I know this because I looked at the time.) The only reason I figure that the Towerview had tenants at all was because of its downtown location and its no-questions-asked policy. (No references needed ought to have raised a lot of red flags right there.)

And I find your conspiracy theories laughable. Maybe the newspaper brought in the fleas and cockroaches, too. And maybe it brought in the stray cats that hung out in the place after the building was vacated, too.

[}:)]

Like Rufnex said, the conditions there were so deplorable because of the vermin alone that just about any other city you name would have shut it down a long time ago. That's not even factoring in the fire and plumbing code violations.

[swake]

quote:Originally posted by PRH

I've been a landlord and I have to wonder why the tenants didn't move out if the Towerview was as bad as the paper described?  

Maybe it's because the rent was consistent with the conditions.

Or maybe the newspaper brought their own rats and trash and junked the place up for another Whirled do-gooder article.  There's nothing I wouldn't put past the newspaper....they've lost their credibility with me a long time ago.

Maybe the tenants of the Towerview prefered a roof over their head than to sleep on the sidewalks.

My point is, when you don't have much money, you don't have much housing choice, but anything is better than sleeping down by the railroad tracks or the river....something a few of you on this forum should try, before you pass such self-righteous judgement on the Towerview.  

Sometimes I wonder where some of you Tulsa Now posters got your brains from.  The tenants of the Towerview are worse off now than they were...but you do-gooders now feel good about yourselves, and that's all that matters to you.  Never mind the people who have been displaced to the streets.

And if the Towerview was operated this way for the past 20 years, why was it all of the sudden so important to condemn it?  Could it be because the new owner is not contributing enough money under the table?

You know, while we are at it, let's do away with the minimum wage too, if the pay is too low, people wouldn't take the jobs. Let's get rid of those pesky child labor laws too, if an 8 year old wants to work a drill press, we should let them! And how about we allow indentured servants again while we are at it. Slavery isn't so bad if the person chooses to be a slave.

The Towerview was not closed to punish the people living there and it wasn't closed because of the conditions. It was closed by the owner for refusing to pay correct the conditions. That's the owner's choice. And if you are a landlord, you know that six months can be a very long time for a multi-dwelling unit to go without repairs. Conditions can change drastically in that short a time-frame if no money is being put into the building.

There are plenty of cheap places to rent in the city and no reason those places should be unsafe. The price noted in this thread was $125 a week for a room. The owner should have been able to provide a clean and safe room for that rent. He just chose not too.

[PRH]

quote:
I find your conspiracy theories laughable. Maybe the newspaper brought in the fleas and cockroaches, too.

In Easter of 1961 (62?) My S.O. attended a party on the river banks at 131st and Sheridan.  It got loud, and it was raided by local law enforcement.  There was a top of a girl's swimsuit in part of the trash down by the water's edge that had nothing to do with the party.  

My S.O. watched as a newspaper photographer and a law enforcement officer hung the swimsuit top from a tree branch and took a picture for the newspaper.  The next morning it was front page news, and the caption implied the teenagers had a nude party, the proof being this "bra" flung into a tree.  My S.O. and I still laugh at how Tulsa used to be.

So you see, reporters are not above manufacturing evidence.  TV reporter Marty Griffin tried to ruin a certain Dallas football player's reputation a few years ago.  Don't you remember that?

[waterboy]

quote:Originally posted by rwarn17588

PRH wrote:

My point is, when you don't have much money, you don't have much housing choice, but anything is better than sleeping down by the railroad tracks or the river....something a few of you on this forum should try, before you pass such self-righteous judgement on the Towerview.

<end clip>

Thanks, but I'll stay in my house. As Bob Dylan said, you don't need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

The fact is, there were plenty of motels in the city that offered rooms for the same price and lower than the $125 a week that tenants had to pay at Towerview. (I know this because I looked at the time.) The only reason I figure that the Towerview had tenants at all was because of its downtown location and its no-questions-asked policy. (No references needed ought to have raised a lot of red flags right there.)

And I find your conspiracy theories laughable. Maybe the newspaper brought in the fleas and cockroaches, too. And maybe it brought in the stray cats that hung out in the place after the building was vacated, too.

[}:)]

Like Rufnex said, the conditions there were so deplorable because of the vermin alone that just about any other city you name would have shut it down a long time ago. That's not even factoring in the fire and plumbing code violations.

This building has long been associated with multiple drug use and all levels of distibution. Word was, you ordered on one floor, paid on another floor and picked up on a third floor. Well known on the street and within law enforcement. Several other buildings within the downtown district have replaced it and continue the biz.

Tenants paying weekly is a time honored ploy to milk 5 weeks out of a 4 week month. You take a weeks deposit up front, collect weekly and when the tenant drops out (arrested, passed out, hospitlized, whatever) keep the deposit and rent to the next damned soul. They tolerate the drug dealing because it keeps the machine rolling.  Groups of attorneys are usually the owners as they are positioned well and know how to do it legally.

So the question has been asked and not answered. Who owned the building the last 10 years and why was it allowed to operate so brazenly?

Ps. Lest someone think I am repeating gossip. I was tipped to this kind of operation by a lawyer who tried to get me to invest in it and a drug user who frequented the Towerview.

[rwarn17588]

So, PRH, you are basing your opinion of the media on one instance that happened 45 years ago (before I was even alive)? Is that the best you could come up with?

I bet you hold a grudge about being lightly teased that one time in preschool, too.

[}:)]

[swake]

In 1961 131st and Sheridan at the River was not IN Tulsa. Hell, it's not IN Tulsa now, that's Bixby today, and back then, that was way, way out of town.

[waterboy]

quote:Originally posted by swake

In 1961 131st and Sheridan at the River was not IN Tulsa. Hell, it's not IN Tulsa now, that's Bixby today, and back then, that was way, way out of town.

That is immaterial. The police didn't even have arrest power on the river's sand bars but that didn't keep them from running off partiers in the mid sixties when "river bottom parties" were rampant. Motorcycle gangs would descend on the partiers and beat them with chains and clubs. One of my friends was laid up a year from that. The authorities decided that the ends justified their clean-up and the local media is just that, local.

[jdb]

"Motorcycle gangs would descend on the partiers and beat them..." - Waterboy

As a club member, I take exception with the word "gangs" vs. "clubs".

It's Street Gangs and Motorcycle Clubs.

Not many people back then deserved such a beating - can just about throw a rock now and hit someone worthy - but I'll take your word  your buddy wasn't one of them.

Wasn't me, glad he got better.
jdb

[waterboy]

quote:Originally posted by jdb

"Motorcycle gangs would descend on the partiers and beat them..." - Waterboy

As a club member, I take exception with the word "gangs" vs. "clubs".

It's Street Gangs and Motorcycle Clubs.

Not many people back then deserved such a beating - can just about throw a rock and hit somene worthy now - but I take your word for it that your buddy wasn't one of them and say it wasn't me and I am glad he got better.

jdb

I'll go with that. Can't say that there was much difference back then though. My friend Mike was just drinking beer with friends. It was the "golden" age. If you were caught underage with a six pack from Golden, Co. you were thrown in jail. People find that hard to believe but its true. So they went to the river bottom where the cops had to come out on foot but the bikers could raise hell and be gone.

[AVERAGE JOE]

Wrinkle, PRH... so eager to be an apologist for an absentee slum lord.

Meanwhile, he's doing real damage to downtown. The comment about how the city has scared off private developers is laughable compared to what this guy has done to scare off developers.

The L-shaped property that TDA owns in that block was put up for sale at fair market value of $1.6 million according to the paper. That's for a patch of land about 58,000 square feet - or about 8 times the size of the Towerview lot, for which the slum lord wants over $2 million. Do the math. That's $27.50/ft for the TDA lot versus more than $260/ft for the Towerview lot, which includes a condemned building that has to be scraped.

So potential developers have 2 choices -- 1. pay the out of state slum lord through the nose for the property or 2. build around it. Of course, who would build a multi-million dollar development adjacent to a condemned flop house?

But according to the brain trust of PRH Wrinkle & Associates, it's the CITY that's scaring off developers. Suuuuuuure it is.

This guy from Oregon has no interest in helping Tulsa one bit. If the Towerview continues to rot, gets knocked down, holds up other developments, he doesn't care. He's just looking to hit the jackpot.

If you're more interested in helping an out-of-state slum lord extort every dollar he can out of his boarded-up flophouse at the expense of the new development that we spent millions of taxpayers dollars to attract, then you're not in favor of helping Tulsa move forward.

[TheArtist]

Boy, at this point, I will be glad when that thing is gone. lol

[jdb]

"If you're more interested in slum lord...at the expense of the new development...then you're not in favor Tulsa." - AJ


I find this closing statement, unsupported -except by personal (informed?) opionon - and unhelpful.

One, it's unstatesman like (never helpful) to create us and them's.
Two, I don't buy the statement that, loosely, this guy doesn't care one flip about Tulsa.
Three, while property rights extend beyond owners of parcels and the location of either, one can't toss the Building with the Firehose water. (er...I'll edit this mumbo later)


Small issue with painting someone evil because they buy something "hoping to hit the jackpot!"

Money talks, to use an old line for frame of reference.


Bigger issue though is what one does with his property, within reason, is protected and should be.

I don't see where you have shown - clearly or otherwise - That this guy is a slum lord, that he had time to accomplish anything positive, or that his investment in Tulsa would hinder the area - if you want to play the us & them game - any differently then what K&K did right off the bat of their investment in Tulsa.

Tee time was bumped to 9:30, see you there.
jdb



This just in:

"...a bit suspicious of the paper's motivation when it began its several-part story..." - pmcalk

Seems some of us has forgotten we share a common enemy and have bedded down in the House of The Whirled.

A bit suspicious?
How about stinkn' to high heaven!?!