New York State and Local Retirement System

If you are of retirement age or are assisting someone of retirement age who is nervous about coming down to the Walter J. Mahoney building to file for their pension, I can tell you that there is nothing intimidating about this process.
Including parking.
I think it’s important to note this for the older crowd, namely the older suburban crowd, who are scared of everything.
Reluctantly, I assisted my mother in coming here this afternoon. She made an appointment last week and was begging me to be her driver since she «doesn’t like driving downtown» and didn’t know where she would park. Sighhhhhh… There are 2 parking lots kiddy corner to the building (on Pearl and Court). They each had several vacant spots and cost $ 5 to park in for about an hour. Money well spent if you’re nervous and intimidated by scary «city culture»… Sighhhhhh…
We parked and walked to the building. Walked in the front doors, signed in and got visitors stickers from the stoic security guards who were definitely typical government employees, probably with a countdown in their heads as to how many more days they have until they get to file for retirement. We were directed up to the 5^th floor, followed signs to the retirement office and again signed in there. We were greeted by a really nice and helpful woman. The representative helping my mom was super nice too. Maybe this shouldn’t have surprised me but I thought these people would be on par with DMV employees, and well, we all know how sunshine and lollipops they tend to be… Just like those security guards… Sighhhhhh…
The whole process took about 20 minutes. The paper work was filed, and shortly we were back walking to the car.
Nothing scary, intimidating, or even inconvenient about this process. There are friendly people here. There were tons of worker bees bustling along outside at the lunch hour. You will not be forced to walk through a dark alley, be accosted for money, or solicited for drugs or sex, despite what may scare you about coming down this way during business hours. You can do it! And I can pretty much guarantee you’ll get out alive. Sighhhhhhhhhh…