OT: JG verkopen Bossert Hotel in Brooklyn

[Boanerges]

Bron: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/30/nyregion/30hotel.html?_r=2&ref=nyregion&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

By ANTHONY RAMIREZ (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/anthony_ramirez/index.html?inline=nyt-per)

Published: January 30, 2008

The historic Hotel Bossert, where the Brooklyn Dodgers celebrated their first and last World Series championship more than a half-century and many bittersweet memories ago, is being put up for sale.

The building’s owner — the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York — said it was not setting a price, but would establish a bidding process that would extend over several months.

The building’s sale is the latest in a series of real estate divestments by the society that began, in part, to take advantage of the thriving real estate market in New York City.

The society is the corporation used by the Jehovah’s Witnesses for their business operations. Their international headquarters, at 25 Columbia Heights, and the large Watchtower sign atop it are prominent features of the Brooklyn waterfront.

The society began leasing space for its staff in the former Hotel Bossert (pronounced BOSS-urt), at 98 Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights, in 1983 and bought the building in 1988 for an undisclosed price. The Jehovah’s Witnesses are also moving some of their operations outside Brooklyn and therefore need less residential space in New York, officials said.

Richard Devine, the building manager for the society, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday that the old hotel was “in very poor condition when we bought it.” The society then began an extensive renovation of the 14-story building.

Mr. Devine declined to estimate the cost of the renovation of the Italian Renaissance Revival-style building, with its white pillars and crystal chandeliers, but said it was “in the millions.”

Over the years, the Jehovah’s Witnesses have used all but six of the 224 apartments in the former hotel to house church members and staff. Six tenants who have lived there since before the society bought it are expected to remain after the sale, Mr. Devine said.

The Bossert was built by Louis Bossert, a Brooklyn lumber magnate, as an apartment hotel in 1909, the same year that the Jehovah’s Witnesses moved their headquarters to Brooklyn.

Known as the Waldorf-Astoria of Brooklyn, the hotel was famous in the 1920s for its Marine Roof, a two-level rooftop restaurant with a commanding view of Manhattan.

When the Brooklyn Dodgers won the 1955 World Series against the Yankees, delirious Dodgers fans celebrated on Montague and Hicks Streets. In the lobby of the Hotel Bossert, they bellowed “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” for Walter Alston, the Dodgers’ manager.

In 1958, the team became the Los Angeles Dodgers.

[Boanerges]

Bron: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/30/nyregion/30hotel.html?_r=2&ref=nyregion&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

By ANTHONY RAMIREZ (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/anthony_ramirez/index.html?inline=nyt-per)

Published: January 30, 2008

The historic Hotel Bossert, where the Brooklyn Dodgers celebrated their first and last World Series championship more than a half-century and many bittersweet memories ago, is being put up for sale.

The building’s owner — the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York — said it was not setting a price, but would establish a bidding process that would extend over several months.

The building’s sale is the latest in a series of real estate divestments by the society that began, in part, to take advantage of the thriving real estate market in New York City.

The society is the corporation used by the Jehovah’s Witnesses for their business operations. Their international headquarters, at 25 Columbia Heights, and the large Watchtower sign atop it are prominent features of the Brooklyn waterfront.

The society began leasing space for its staff in the former Hotel Bossert (pronounced BOSS-urt), at 98 Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights, in 1983 and bought the building in 1988 for an undisclosed price. The Jehovah’s Witnesses are also moving some of their operations outside Brooklyn and therefore need less residential space in New York, officials said.

Richard Devine, the building manager for the society, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday that the old hotel was “in very poor condition when we bought it.” The society then began an extensive renovation of the 14-story building.

Mr. Devine declined to estimate the cost of the renovation of the Italian Renaissance Revival-style building, with its white pillars and crystal chandeliers, but said it was “in the millions.”

Over the years, the Jehovah’s Witnesses have used all but six of the 224 apartments in the former hotel to house church members and staff. Six tenants who have lived there since before the society bought it are expected to remain after the sale, Mr. Devine said.

The Bossert was built by Louis Bossert, a Brooklyn lumber magnate, as an apartment hotel in 1909, the same year that the Jehovah’s Witnesses moved their headquarters to Brooklyn.

Known as the Waldorf-Astoria of Brooklyn, the hotel was famous in the 1920s for its Marine Roof, a two-level rooftop restaurant with a commanding view of Manhattan.

When the Brooklyn Dodgers won the 1955 World Series against the Yankees, delirious Dodgers fans celebrated on Montague and Hicks Streets. In the lobby of the Hotel Bossert, they bellowed “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” for Walter Alston, the Dodgers’ manager.

In 1958, the team became the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Zijn ze een potje aan het maken om de achterstallige belastingschuld in Frankrijk te kunnen betalen? De Franse staat heeft een claim van 50 miljoen euro op de JG. Het zal wel niet zo lang meer duren, totdat het Europese Hof (de laatste instantie: hierna staan er geen rechtsmiddelen meer open, en wordt het vonnis onherroepelijk) over deze zaak geoordeeld heeft.

Groet, Boa

[botteke]

Zijn ze een potje aan het maken om de achterstallige belastingschuld in Frankrijk te kunnen betalen?
Wat is 50 miljoen in vergelijking met hun kapitaal?


De Franse staat heeft een claim van 50 miljoen euro op de JG. Het zal wel niet zo lang meer duren, totdat het Europese Hof (de laatste instantie: hierna staan er geen rechtsmiddelen meer open, en wordt het vonnis onherroepelijk) over deze zaak geoordeeld heeft.
Euh, dat roept om meer openbaarheid, dat wist ik niet!

[Boanerges]

Hai Botteke,

Je kunt het op de mediasite van het WTG lezen:

http://www.jw-media.org/newsroom/index.htm?content=/region/europe/france/english/releases/religious_freedom/fra_e041006.htm

Groet, Boa

[Apostata]

Hallo,


Ook interessant, met name het 'geen deel van de wereld' zijn, in combinatie met het subsidieren door diezelfde wereld.
Toont m.i. het financieel opportunisme van het WTG aan:


http://wernercohn.com/Jehovah'sWitnesses1995.html

Our Witness Neighbors:

Taxes Not Paid by Witnesses Cost City $10 Million a Year

Brooklyn Heights Press, June 1, 1995

© 1995 by Werner Cohn

The grand old Bossert Hotel on the corner of Montague and Hicks Streets, is, as Jehovah's Witnesses might say, in Brooklyn Heights but not of it.

Seen from the outside, which is the only way an ordinary mortal can see it now, the physical hotel exudes the patrician elegance of the most expensive parts of the neighborhood. The woodwork is lovingly waxed, the brass is shiny, everything is perfectly maintained.

But the human goings-on are quite another story. Neatly dressed young men and women, apple-pie American rather than patrician, hover around not only as residents of the hotel but also as its delivery personnel and maintenance crew. Others come from the neighboring Jehovah's Witness plant on Furman Street to lunch and to dine in the basement communal restaurant. This dining hall is the only feature of today's Bossert that can easily be observed by passers-by, through the basement windows on Hicks Street. The Bossert is no longer a public hotel; it is a private preserve of the Witnesses, also known as the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, part of the group's very considerable real estate holdings in Brooklyn Heights.

The Witnesses established their first foothold here in 1909, when Charles Taze Russell, their founder, moved the headquarters from Pennsylvania. But their massive Heights presence began after the Second World War. From time to time there was neighborhood opposition to them, notably when they displaced older residents along Columbia Heights to make room for their ever-expanding dormitories. Opposition was also caused by the rigorous economic self-sufficiency of the Witnesses. Their food is brought in from their own farms, their maintenance is performed by their own craftsmen; they cannot be said to benefit the local economy.

At one time, about twenty years ago, a local florist on Montague Street expressed his displeasure by placing a sign in his shop window :


The Jehovah's Witnesses ... embark upon a program of using their tax-free millions to swallow up building after building until they own a major portion of the Heights ... and contribute nothing to the life of the community except for destroying lovely old brownstone houses and erecting ugly, modern structures.The map of thirty-six properties listed in the name of the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society in the Heights derives from city records, which, I was told, may be incomplete. The city estimates the current total market value of the Witness properties that are shown here at over 190 million dollars. A very small proportion of this property is taxed, most of it is wholly exempt. If all of this property were on the tax rolls, the city would receive an additional $9,427,051 per year. But this figure is based on current assessments, which, in the case of totally exempt buildings, are generally out of date. For that reason one can estimate that the city loses well more than ten million dollars a year as a result of Witness real estate holdings in Brooklyn Heights. This sum amounts to an indirect subsidy paid to the Witnesses by the tax payers of the city.

The Witnesses are certainly not alone in receiving such indirect subsidies. All religious, educational, and charitable groups enjoy similar benefits. But the Witnesses are distinctly different from other religious groups because most of their properties are not used for religious purposes in the traditional sense. Unlike churches and synagogues, most of the Witness property is not used for public worship. The bulk of the Witness property in the Heights is used, first, to print Witness literature in the huge "factory" (printing plant), and, second, for the communal housing of about 3,500 young Witnesses who work for no more than their upkeep.

The Witnesses, together with certain other groups, have obtained such gray-area tax exemptions through aggressive litigation. Until the Second World War, the courts interpreted the laws providing for religious tax exemption very strictly, and printing plants and dormitories were held taxable. But since the war, New York State judges have liberalized the law considerably in a series of decisions in which the Witnesses figured very prominently. The result is that the Witnesses today enjoy property exemptions for uses that would have been deemed secular in an earlier age. Many say that the Witnesses benefit from a series of legal loopholes.

There is an irony in this situation. The Witnesses believe "worldly" institutions, especially governments, to be basically evil, though they do teach that governments should generally be obeyed. Jehovah's Witnesses, in matters other than real estate, jealously guard their "separation" from government. They will not serve in the armed forces, especially not in time of war; they will not salute the flag or pledge allegiance to the country; they are, in their own view, above the worldly allegiances of the rest of us. In a compendium of their doctrines entitled Insight on the Scriptures, they proclaim that "Christians must keep themselves clean and unspotted by [the] world's corruption and defilements, not entering into friendly relations with it, lest they be condemned with it." The willingness of the Witnesses to accept indirect government subsidies, through a number of legal loopholes, must be judged in the light of these Witness doctrines.

Some former Witnesses have criticized the organization for what they perceive as hypocrisy in the matter of real estate and other worldly possessions. One such critic is the well-known writer Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, who recalls her Witness days in her 1978 book Visions of Glory. Another is H. James Penton, a Canadian professor of history and an ex-Witness, who wrote a critical history of the Witnesses in his 1985 volume Apocalypse Delayed. But the most embarrassing accounts, from the point of view of the Witnesses, are two books by Mr. Ray Franz, a former member of the Witness Governing Body: Crisis of Conscience, 1984, and In Search of Christian Freedom, 1991.

But despite such criticism from former members, it is unlikely that the Witnesses will pay voluntarily what is not required of them by law, or that public policy will change to require such payments. After all, many more millions are lost to the city through tax exemptions of the larger denominations, and there are many instances, in the case of the major religions, of loopholes similar to those that benefit the Witnesses. It would require a veritable revolution in the political climate before any such exempt properties could ever be brought onto the tax rolls.
Nevertheless, we do live in a time in which government cannot find the means for the most basic services, a time in which people go hungry and unhoused and without medical care. Perhaps, who knows, our politicians will some day come to reconsider their present habit of heaping millions, no questions asked, upon all manner of religion.


Click here to go to home page of Werner Cohn (http://wernercohn.com/index.html)


groet,

Apostata

[Apostata]

enkele foto's van het pand http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categories/category.php?category_id=5&id=18146
http://www.brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/2008/01/watchtower_dive.php?comments=10
http://mcbrooklyn.blogspot.com/2008/01/watchtowers-hotel-bossert-brooklyns.html

Een van de commentaren:
2:15, they're getting rid of properties cuz for years there has been a split btw those who wanted to stay in Brooklyn, and those that wanted to move everything upstate. Apparently upstate has won.
I lived on the same block as the Bossert when they were renovating it, and at least on the outside, they did a great job. Would be wonderful to see the restaurant at the top open again.
If I had a dollar for every Witness who died waiting for the world to end, I could buy the Bossert and have a bit left over.

groet

Apostata

[Apostata]

Blijkbaar heeft het WTG nog meer gebouwen verkocht:

http://www.brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/2007/04/good_lord_watch.php lees ook de commentaren op het artikel.

Vond het wel interessant.

groet,

Apostata

[Asmara]

enkele foto's van het pand http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categories/category.php?category_id=5&id=18146
http://www.brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/2008/01/watchtower_dive.php?comments=10
http://mcbrooklyn.blogspot.com/2008/01/watchtowers-hotel-bossert-brooklyns.html

Een van de commentaren:
2:15, they're getting rid of properties cuz for years there has been a split btw those who wanted to stay in Brooklyn, and those that wanted to move everything upstate. Apparently upstate has won.
I lived on the same block as the Bossert when they were renovating it, and at least on the outside, they did a great job. Would be wonderful to see the restaurant at the top open again.
If I had a dollar for every Witness who died waiting for the world to end, I could buy the Bossert and have a bit left over.

groet

Apostata

Als er een nieuwe koninkrijkszaal wordt gebouwd dan is die sober en met niet teveel poespas, want dat getuigt van nederigheid, bla bla bla bla bla bla....

Wat een contrast met dit gebouw!!

Voor mij is het duidelijk, het is één groot piramidespel. Bovenin de rijken en onderin de armen/slaafjes.

:bad.gif:

[Ukkie]

.

The society began leasing space for its staff in the former Hotel Bossert (pronounced BOSS-urt), at 98 Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights, in 1983 and bought the building in 1988 for an undisclosed price. The Jehovah’s Witnesses are also moving some of their operations outside Brooklyn and therefore need less residential space in New York, officials said.

Een bevestiging van de werkwijze van COHI Towers.

http://www.paradise-cafe.nl/showthread.php?t=1189

We vroegen ons af wat de bedragen waren waarvoor de gebouwen verhandeld zijn.
Wel....het is een undisclosed price.

Vrij veel duisternis voor deze lichtdragers.

"The society began leasing space for its staff ....in 1983..."
Dit is volgens mij weer zo'n rookgordijn.

In 1983 kocht COHI Towers het gebouw.
Het moest toen nog helemaal opgeknapt worden.

Dat opknapwerk werd gedaan door JG-vrijwilligers, die dachten dat ze voor het WTG (lees Jehovah) werkten.
Het lijkt me sterk dat er vanaf 1983 al echt leden van de Bethelfamilie woonden (ze houden niet zoveel van stof en herrie).

Het enige doel van de lease was om te kunnen zeggen dat het gebouw "ter beschikking" van het WTG was gekomen.
Daarmee de indruk wekkend dat het WTG de eigenaar was.

Pas toen het gebouw helemaal klaar was, werd het door het WTG (in 1988 )voor een "niet openbaar gemaakt bedrag" overgenomen.
TOEN werd het WTG pas eigenaar (na 5 jaar).
Voor wie hadden die vrijwilligers dan al die jaren gewerkt?

Het lijkt er dus op dat ze gewerkt hebben om een zo groot mogelijk prijsverschil te realiseren tussen de aanschafprijs van een vervallen gebouw door COHI Towers.....en de verkoopprijs van COHI aan het WTG....maar nu in een perfecte staat.

Het verschil tussen aanschaf door COHI en verkoop aan WTG verdwijnt dan in de zakken van COHI Towers (lees zeer rijke getuigen).

.

[botteke]

Je kunt het op de mediasite van het WTG lezen:

http://www.jw-media.org/newsroom/index.htm?content=/region/europe/france/english/releases/religious_freedom/fra_e041006.htm

Dank je Martin,

Blijkbaar in zijn geheel een nieuwigheid in Frankrijk. Maar toch iets om over na te denken.

Groetjes,
André

[Jaël]

He, hebben ze vorig jaar in jan ofzo ook niet iets verkocht? Doen ze dat elk jaar?

[Richard]

dit hebben we al eens helemaal uitgespit, maar iets concreets komt er toch niet uit. En zo lang het bij verdenkingen blijft is het moddergooien hoe zeer we ook denken dat onze interpretatie van wat er gebeurd is waar is.

[Apostata]

Hi Richard,

In welke topic is dat uitgespit? Ben hier wel benieuwd naar. Url mss?

groet,

Apostata