The Top 10 Co-op / Condo Quotes of 2011

"My father grew up in the segregated South. He had guns pointed at his head. I just have these people to deal with."

— Alphonse Fletcher Jr., who sued The Dakota's co-op board alleging racial discrimination

"This is a tax-protest, Queens style. It started from the ground up — Democrats and Republicans together."

— Glen Oaks Village co-op board president Bob Friedrich, describing the fallout from the New York City Finance Dept.'s attempted triple-digit increases in property-tax valuation

"It's as though he were giving us half a cup or arsenic instead of a cup of arsenic. Both are lethal."

— State Senator Toby Anne Stavisky (D-16th Senate District), on the tax commissioner then issuing an arbitrary 50 percent cap

"There was a glitch."

— Finance Dept. spokesperson Owen Stone, blaming a computer for some of the unrealistic valuations

"We were able to keep what's most important to our families — affordable health care and pensions."

— Building worker Angel Ortega, on a four-year union contract that averted a strike by 3,000 Bronx supers, porters, doormen and others

"Do you want to live there? This is Co-op City. Oh man! This is so beautiful."

— Political commentator Glenn Beck sarcastically attacking the affordable-apartment complex

"How dare he?"

— Councilman James Vacca (D-Bronx/District 13), in response

"Vitriolic garbage. He pits one person against another and that's not what this country is about...."

— Co-op City resident Martin Prince 

"Once you have negative postings on the Internet you can't get rid of them, so you have to put out a positive image and positive deeds."

— Co-op board president Paul Miller, 308 East 79th Street, reflecting the new reality of co-op / condo image-branding

"In order to ensure that you are moving into an apartment that will offer you maximum cleanliness, protection and future peace of mind, you are required to provide the inspection and treatment of your new apartment by a qualified exterminator. This is in order to ensure that the entire apartment is completely free of infestation by any vermin, specifically including but not limited to bed bugs, roaches, ants and termites."

— House rule at a building managed by Pride Property Management president Alex Kuffel, reflecting the new reality of New York City bed bugs

"Why aren't these 'caped crusaders' paying their common charges?"

— Lobby-poster caption by condo board of 95 Greene Street, frustrated by celebrity photographer Ken Nahoum and his supermodel wife

"There was one faction in the building that just didn't want to do anything and that we referred to as the 'just paint' crowd."

— Lars Neubohn, former co-op board treasurer, 16 East 96th Street, on boards' perennial struggle to modernize buildings

"But this is not for cosmetic purposes, this is for the welfare of a child."

— Tom Aiello, board member of the charitable Dr. Theodore A. Atlas Foundation, over a Staten Island condo board's reluctance to approve a front-door wheelchair lift for a 4-year-old girl with cerebral palsy

"Wow, terrific results."

— Condo resident Geri B. Farnell, wife of a soldier deployed to Afghan War, on receiving an apology from a condo board that had initially forbidden her to fly an American flag

Compiled by Frank Lovece

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