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The Building Has 1,000 Eyes

Credit...Evan Sung for The New York Times

Some of the wealthiest people in New York City live at 740 Park Avenue: the industrialist David Koch and the financier Stephen Schwarzman, among others. It’s hard to pass the board inspection; it’s very hard to get past the vigilant doormen.

Still, this past summer, in a series of strikes, thieves broke into four apartments, making off with an estimated $250,000 in high-end watches and diamond jewelry.

News of the crime shook the ground under the feet of many in the neighborhood. “I don’t think there’s a single co-op board member who hasn’t mentioned the burglaries at 740 Park at a meeting,” said Steven O. Goldschmidt, a broker at Warburg Realty. “It’s the kind of thing that makes buildings assess and double-check what kind of surveillance equipment they have.”

Increasingly, such equipment is becoming part of building “décor.” Cameras are the sole line of defense for small, unmanned walk-ups, and they can extend the reach of the doorman in luxury co-ops. Buildings that don’t have cameras are thinking about getting them. Buildings that do have them are thinking about getting more or upgrading their systems.

“When the economy is up, the security business is up,” said Larry Dolin, the chief executive of American Security Systems.

Debates about privacy versus security — from airport screening to phone-line tapping and Internet tracking — rage on and on. But in the singular world of New York real estate, there’s no contest. Security rules, and privacy concerns go out the window — the one with the camera attached. Big Brother, come on over and bring your friends.

Where and how many cameras are used in a building can be a source of lengthy cogitation, but ultimately it depends on the topography of a building and the law. Condo and co-op boards are governed by the so-called business judgment rule, said Steven D. Sladkus, a real estate lawyer at Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz. “If they feel video surveillance equipment is necessary somewhere,” he said, “generally that decision shouldn’t be challenged.”

Many boards ponder whether to put cameras in the elevators, Mr. Sladkus added. “I tell boards that there is no expectation of privacy in elevators or a hallway or a lobby or a basement. Once you’re in a public area, it’s more or less fair game for a camera.”

The areas most frequently outfitted with cameras are courtyards and service entrances, according to Brian McLaughlin, the president of SecureCom, a company that installs surveillance and communication systems.

“We do an assessment and clients pick and choose what they want,” Mr. McLaughlin said. He recalled that 15 years ago, high-end buildings generally didn’t want cameras in their lobbies. “Residents didn’t want to be photographed. That’s no longer the attitude.”

Many buildings today have cameras in the lobby, but cameras in elevators are less of a priority, he added, and some buildings install them in service elevators but not in passenger elevators.

Choosing the areas to monitor within a building can be “an art,” said Paul Gottsegen, the president of the Halstead Management Company. “You want information that is important to the security of the building. It’s more important to know who is going into the billiard room than what they are doing on the billiard table.”

Security is a subject that most real estate brokers approach gingerly, if they approach it at all.

While the phrase “doorman building” connotes service and convenience — someone to get you a cab, ferry your Fresh Direct order and take your packages — it’s also viewed as a synonym, or code, for safety and security, even though “it is not a doorman’s job to directly intervene,” according to a spokesman for the union that represents property workers.

But brokers and marketing brochures are unlikely to bring up the fact that a building has cameras here and cameras there. “Unless it’s a Star-Wars-like system,” said Mr. Goldschmidt, of Warburg Realty, “mentioning safety and security can be, as much as any, a red flag to potential buyers. They’ll think, ‘Oh, are there problems with crime around here?’  

Brokers might, however, highlight surveillance if their clients are celebrities. “I’ll frequently point to the cameras in the elevator and say, ‘We’re under surveillance right now and it really adds to the security,’ ” said Stuart Moss, a broker at Corcoran.

And, he added, “whether I’m working with a celebrity or not, I almost always point out the camera when I’m showing a basement laundry room, because it’s often in an isolated area.”

Mr. Dolin, of American Security Systems, estimates that a full surveillance system costs a building between $3,000 and $20,000, depending on whether it’s necessary to run pipes for the wiring. Special circumstances, both inside and outside a building, can propel buildings to install extra cameras, if only temporarily.

“We recommend to our clients that they install additional surveillance if work is being done on the outside of the building and there’s scaffolding that someone could climb on and gain access,” said Divya Rashad, the managing director of the Andrews Organization, a property management company. “It’s just peace of mind.”

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Security cameras — including two (top right, bottom left) at a Battery Park City building owned by the Albanese Organization — are on duty at many residential buildings.Credit...Evan Sung for The New York Times

Another motivator: a sudden swell of gut renovations or deliverymen.

“The issue is how many nonresidents you have coming into the building,” Mr. Moss said. “With a big construction project, you could have a dozen different laborers on site. And a food delivery person could easily get off at the wrong floor. Then if he decides he isn’t happy with his tip and scratches up the wood on the elevator, we’ll have it on video.”

When a homeless shelter opened two years ago on West 25th Street, the perimeter of the nearby condo Chelsea Mercantile got more cameras, according to a resident who requested anonymity because he wasn’t authorized by the building’s board to comment. “We’ve always had perimeter cameras,” the resident said. “But because of concerns about loitering, we added some to get a wide perspective of what was going on on the sidewalk.”

Building managers say that cameras can serve as a deterrent to crime and offer documentary evidence if the deterrent proves ineffective. As a rule, tapes are preserved for 30 days.

“We have perimeter cameras out in front of the building,” said Larry McCool, the resident manager of a co-op in the East 50s. “There have been stickups on the street and I had beautiful pictures and the police were able to catch the guys. Detectives will call me fairly often and give me the time frame of an incident and I start reviewing the video.”

Sometimes, it takes a little nudging for buildings to acknowledge their vulnerability. Mr. McLaughlin is installing a system at a property that was easily breached by a security team doing reconnaissance in advance of a visit by “a person of prominence within the government,” he said. “The agent got onto the roof of this particular building, then located the resident manager and said, ‘Your building is not very secure.’ ”

The board’s members acted swiftly, perhaps more concerned about their own safety than the safety of the bigwig who was planning a visit to the neighborhood.

Beyond their security uses, however, cameras can function as a kind of management tool.

A few years ago, a co-op on the Upper East Side upgraded its surveillance equipment “partly to monitor our night man,” said Phil Ginsberg, a longtime member of the board. “Everyone liked him, but he had a history of falling asleep. With the new system we could monitor him. He’s still with the building, but he’s on probation.”

Mr. Dolin says he has been getting more calls from condo boards intent on catching residents who are “hoteling” — offering their apartments for short-term rental — and from landlords bent on collaring tenants of rent-stabilized apartments who aren’t being truthful about their primary residence. “We bring in cameras and put them in the hallways,” Mr. Dolin said.

For his part, Mr. McLaughlin has been hired to get to the bottom of the matter when “someone brings his dog out to the stairwell to do its business and the building wants to find out who it is,” he said.

Meanwhile, a camera in a condo on Jane Street recorded a couple in the elevator who were “in flagrante delicto,” according to Aaron Shmulewitz, who heads the co-op and condo practice at the law firm Belkin Burden Wenig & Goldman. “They were renting from the unit owner,” he said. “Suffice it to say that the board pressured him not to renew their lease.”

Video evidence can sometimes also come in handy in legal matters. When a pedestrian fell in front of the co-op managed by Mr. McCool, and sued the building for $8 million, things looked bleak, said the board’s president, Dennis Paget. “But the surveillance camera on the perimeter of the building had recorded what happened,” he said, “and the judge threw the case out.”

Is there such a thing as surveillance overkill? Mr. Dolin thinks so. “Some lower-income buildings want to put multiple cameras and they’ll end up with 70 or 80 of them. That’s crazy,” he said.

With a large construction project about to begin on the roof of a Midtown East co-op, and the residents of the penthouse expressing concern, said Steven Wagner, the board president, “we’ve put additional cameras around the work area and in the stairwells per the suggestions of our security company.”

“And now,” he continued, “the owners of the penthouse want to upgrade beyond the cameras and get facial recognition software. We don’t think the additional expense is warranted, but if they want to pay for it, we have no objection.”

Some residents who have no problem with the presence of cameras may have a problem with who watches the footage.

“In one building a board member had the ability to access the feed on his computer,” said John Janangelo, an executive at Douglas Elliman Property management. “One or two people in the building objected, saying they didn’t want someone on the board watching them work out in the gym.”

Even fully clothed, there are those who aren’t ready, at least not eager, for their close-ups.

“When I first came here,” said Mr. McCool, the resident manager, “there were only two cameras and the building has nine entrances. That was one of the first things I straightened out: we now have 25 cameras. But there were residents who felt their privacy was being invaded. They just didn’t grasp the situation.”

Meanwhile, during a meeting, the staff at Mr. Wagner’s building “expressed concern that the cameras were being used to monitor them, and some objected to that,” Mr. Wagner said. “And my comment was, ‘Why would you object to the camera if you’re doing your job?’ ”

A doorman building wasn’t within the budget of Arielle Pinsker, 23, the office manager at a pediatric gym. Even though she was looking on the Upper East Side, an area she considered safe, she refused to consider buildings that had no security measures at all. “Then I found a rental that had a video camera outside. If you turn to a channel on cable you can see the face of the person buzzing to your building.”

“Having one camera was perfect,” Ms. Pinsker said. “But two cameras? That would have been a turnoff.”

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section RE, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: The Building Has 1,000 Eyes. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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