WATER TOWER
Tenants face off with a new mega-project in Brooklyn
THE Brooklyn waterfront is a washout, roiled residents of a new residential megaproject say. Several residents of Two Blue Slip — a 421-unit slice of Brookfield Properties & Park Tower Group’s Greenpoint Landing development on the East River, which is transforming an industrial eyesore into a 22-acre master-planned neighborhood — have had it with alleged shoddy construction, constant leaks and dysfunctional management.
“I am concerned for my safety,” said Two Blue Slip resident Christian Desrosiers, 33, who was renting a $3,590 L-shaped studio on the 36th floor of the 39-story building, which opened last year. “After [the Champlain Towers South collapse in] Florida, yeah, I’m not gonna give these guys the benefit of the doubt.”
Since the start of his lease, on May 28, his apartment has suffered from four leaks that poured from his ceilings, down his walls and into his floors, videos shared with the Post show. It ruined valuable possessions like a pair of his girlfriend’s Hermès shoes.
Units currently listed at the tower range from $3,642 for a studio to $14,390 for a two-bedroom.
“I saw the leak when I was touring the unit originally — the wallpaper was warped from the water but the leasing agent said it was a minor thing that would be fixed before I moved in,” Desrosiers said. ”I showed up on the first day of my lease with my stuff to move in and they say, ‘You can’t move into your unit. There is a leak and we don’t know how to solve it.’ ”
It was nearly a month before he could move in.
After returning to the apartment, three more leaks soon occurred. At that point, Desrosiers said his relationship with management dissolved and became unworkable.
Desrosiers asked that his unit be comped until it became habitable. Brookfield responded by offering to break his lease on the condition that he remove social media posts (he posted videos of the leaks on YouTube) and sign an NDA. Desrosiers said he was then forced to hire an attorney for the first time in his life.
“He just wants to be treated decently, humanely, fairly,” said Desrosiers’ attorney Jeffrey McAdams, “They are trying to blame him for things they are responsible for, which is typical.”
Brookfield eventually relented and offered an additional free month to Desrosiers (due to pandemic-era incentives, three free months were built into his lease) — but only after The Post reached out to Brookfield.
They also offered Desrosiers a smaller unit in the building, listed for $3,262, with lower ceilings that don’t accommodate his belongings. An email shared with The Post reveals that under the agreement Desrosiers will owe roughly $6,000 on the same unit if he stays past Oct. 31.
Faced with no other option but to drop everything and hunt for last-minute housing, Desrosiers agreed to Brookfield’s offer,
Brookfield admits to the leaks
TALK about what you can do for your country! John F. Kennedy’s tiny, $95-a-month Boston rental at 122 Bowdoin St. was his official — and only known — residence there from 1946 until his death, according to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.
But it was also where Diana de Vegh rendezvoused with Kennedy from 1958 to 1962, she told The Post.
“Of course, it was fantastic for anyone to believe that a man of his background and his wealth could ever live in a place like 122. It was not even modest,” Judge Francis X. Morrissey told the library in 1964.
Kennedy — who also had homes in Washington, D.C., McLean, Va, and New York City — visited the apartment on weekends and had a roommate on weekdays from 1956 to 1961, according to JFK library records.
He needed the address to establish residency in Massachusetts, and it was convenient to the Massachusetts statehouse across the street.
But for four years of his 17year residency in apartment
No. 36, the married president in his 40s also used the space to woo a then-20-year-old Radcliffe College junior he met at a reelection campaign event.
“Back then, nice girls did not have sex, that was a no-kidding-around situation, so I did not talk about it. It just wasn’t something I discussed,” de Vegh told The Post.
Kennedy and de Vegh’s affair traipsed from New York City to Washington, D.C., where she hoped to get more of the president’s attention, she said.
Their affair ended in 1962 over a political conflict of interest, about the time Kennedy is believed to have begun his more famed affair with Marilyn Monroe.
Welcome to the romp room
Kennedy’s 720-square-foot apartment, within the 1926 red brick Colonial revival building, had a small living room, a kitchen with a door, two bedrooms and a bathroom, guests recalled.
It had radiator heat and a non-working fireplace, landlords told The Post. The chairs and tables were broken — the only nice piece of furniture was a bed for the Kennedy’s injured back.
“People used to come in and they would think it would be part of an act. They couldn’t believe he actually lived there, which he did,” said Morrissey.
On the bookshelf, copies of “Lolita” and “Call the Lady Indiscreet” mingled with economics and Russian history titles.
He also had a “little 10-cent or 25-cent football” he’d throw around, a television and an cheap music player.
It’s unclear who occupies the former president’s apartment today. But previous tenants include a former MIT student and a recently deceased professor.
But there’s one amenity from JFK’s time we’re hoping wasn’t preserved: The door to the apartment could be locked from the outside, according to Louis Weinstein, a lawyer who consulted with Kennedy.
“There was a strange lock, because you couldn’t open it from the inside, and I wondered what would happen in case of a fire,” Weinstein told the library in 1982.