Many tenants lived beyond their means; they liked the swimming pool, the playground and A\/C, but couldn\u2019t really afford these amenities. There were a lot of evictions.<\/p>\n
The complex was garden-style, low-rise buildings set around a pool.\u00a0 All the buildings had mansard roofs like McDonald\u2019s.\u00a0 My father kept a sketch of Jamestown Village in our family room.<\/p>\n
A high school <\/strong><\/span>wrestling coach, who was also a big-time real estate investor, bought the complex and converted it to condos in 1976. \u00a0That worked out well for the coach and my dad. \u00a0As my dad\u2019s banker said, \u201cYou made your money, and\u00a0 he made his.\u201d<\/p>\n I worked on the Jamestown Village roof, replacing lids to vents.\u00a0 The lids were called jap caps because they looked like coolie hats.<\/p>\n There was no better place than a roof top — at least a flat roof. You could see everybody, and nobody could see you.\u00a0 That\u2019s why cops in The Wire<\/em> go on roofs so often.<\/p>\n But it wasn\u2019t <\/strong><\/span>all fun and games on the roof.\u00a0 There was some work too:<\/p>\n Lesson 1:\u00a0 Modified bitumen membrane is the basic black roof, usually applied with a blow torch.<\/p>\n Lesson 2: \u00a0Thermoplastic polyolefin (TPO) roofs look like white pool liner.\u00a0 Your roof\u00a0 is reflective.\u00a0 Cleveland has more \u201cheat\u201d days than \u201ccool\u201d days, which means white roofs (TPOs) are great in Dallas, but not so great in Cleveland.<\/p>\n Lesson 3:<\/strong><\/span> Summer is the best time to put on a roof. \u00a0I had a roof installed in April and it rained constantly, and the job was a mess; we had leaks into the apartments below.<\/p>\n Lesson 4:\u00a0 Consider vacationing on a roof.\u00a0 There might be an old longue chair up there, left by a rebellious tenant who sneaked up for sunbathing and serious drinking.\u00a0 People want to be on roofs badly.<\/p>\n There is usually an empty tar bucket for your guest to sit on.<\/p>\n Roof & Relaxation<\/p><\/div>\n —-<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A tenant peed in the heating ducts and poured aquarium gravel into the toilet.\u00a0 Several other residents used the cheap hollow-core doors for karate practice.\u00a0 The apartment building looked genteel, but it wasn\u2019t. \u00a0\u00a0Jamestown Village, on the West Side, was a post-war, modern apartment complex. Many tenants lived beyond their means; they liked the swimming […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-landlord-biz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5536"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8539,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5536\/revisions\/8539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/rooftop2-288x300.jpg\" "\\"rooftop\\"")
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/maris-baseball-card-2.jpg\" "\\"maris")
<\/a>The Cleveland Plain Dealer <\/em>ran an op-ed of mine yesterday.\u00a0 Something about baseball cards.\u00a0 Gotta write about baseball if you want to be in the big leagues: “Investment Home Run.”<\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n