From the Brooklyn Paper:City inspectors ordered dozens of Williamsburg artists out of their decrepit loft building on Thursday — and now the tenants are suing their landlord, claiming that they had no idea they were living in an illegal warehouse space with hundreds of building code violations.
The building, on Metropolitan Avenue near Lorimer Street, houses 40 or 50 residents in lofts and studios, despite the fact that it’s zoned for commercial use and the owners have 157 open violations with the city.
Tenants said that Department of Buildings inspectors arrived in the morning and demanded that the residents leave by sundown — mostly because there hasn’t been an emergency exit or structurally sound stairs for years.
And the problems are actually worse than he could have imagined. The city has smacked the landlord with 64 structural violations — 63 of which were never resolved — since 1993, and the Environmental Control Board still has 94 open cases against the building, ranging from the building’s allegedly unsafe elevator and apparently blocked emergency exit, to reported structural dilapidation and illegally erected walls and rooms.
Department documents show that landlords filed for a permit on Oct. 6 to fix the place up, just a week before Thursday’s raid — but records show that the same owners have appealed to fix it up before, yet did no work.
9 comments:
Maybe they can move into the projects.
boo hoo, what a sad story.... NOT!
Does the DOB EVER come to Queens. I've lodged complaints about several illegal dwellings and nothing has been done.
allow me to explain...if these were illegal immigrants and their endless jackpot babies/offspring, the news truck would be there along with elected officials making sure that the evictees have shelter. and the liberals would have called for a demonstration to support the illegals. but... since these are white citizens, who cares? How much noise are white people going to make?
No one is there to scream racism for them.
it is sad because guess what? it can be done to you too.
it is sad because guess what? it can be done to you too.
Really? I have a hard time believing that someone will come and kick me out of my legal apartment, in a legal building, that I have a lease for. One that I am not squatting in, nor paying rent to a slumlord, nor living in squalor in.
All of these Billyburg Hipster "Artists" that live in these illegal lofts know damn well that they're living illegally. They think they're cool for doing so. Google "475 Kent Ave." These asshole hipster douchebags know precisely what they're doing.
Look at these assholes http://www.latfh.com/
The DOB is on Queens Blvd.
IN QUEENS.
But damn if I have ever seen an inspector closing down an illeagl site IN QUEENS.
That's because they are in there with their hand open waiting for their payoff and out of there as fast as you can say Helen Marshall or The HONORABLE Michael Bloomberg!
We had a space in that building in 1997. BEFORE IT WAS COOL. The same landlord was doing the SAME EXACT THING back then. The city knew about it and did nothing. That was 1997.
You could always call 311 and have your complaint "auto-completed" by the Bloomberg Administration's Magic Numbers Game Of Problem Solving. That'll solve all of your problems.
Tough shit
Really? I have a hard time believing that someone will come and kick me out of my legal apartment, in a legal building, that I have a lease for. One that I am not squatting in, nor paying rent to a slumlord, nor living in squalor in.
All of these Billyburg Hipster "Artists" that live in these illegal lofts know damn well that they're living illegally. They think they're cool for doing so. Google "475 Kent Ave." These asshole hipster douchebags know precisely what they're doing.
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Agreed, but you have to admit that the anonymous before you was dead on about the illegals.
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