City's Broken Facades program reveals hundreds of more buildings with hazards

THE CITY

The five-star Lotte New York Palace, featured on “Gossip Girl,” beckons guests and selfie-takers with an Instagram-ready courtyard, ringed by a mansion-like 19th century brownstone at the base of a modern hotel tower.

But what visitors may not know is that months ago, a city building inspector flagged the Madison Avenue property’s owner, the Archdiocese of New York, for failing to put up a sidewalk shed or other measures to protect passersby from a facade deemed dangerous.

The $10,000 fine for “failure to take required measures to protect public safety” — and two other fines totaling $3,750 for failure to maintain exteriors — followed a March 2019 engineering report that found broken roof tiles, deteriorating chimneys and loose safety railings, among other potential hazards, records show.

The Palace is one of more than 300 buildings citywide that have open violations in city Department of Buildings records for not putting protections in place to shield passersby in the event a piece of facade crumbles or collapses following a failed inspection.

The risks of deteriorating materials dozens of feet above ground came into tragic view last month, when architect Erica Tishman was killed near Times Square by a piece of terra cotta that broke free from a building and plummeted.

The Department of Buildings swiftly announced it would inspect 1,331 buildings whose mandatory every-five-year inspections had found their facades unsafe, “to determine if they required additional pedestrian protections.”

Of those, 220 lacked such protections and would be issued violations requiring them to put up barriers to falling objects, according to the DOB. The agency declined to identify the buildings while enforcement actions are ongoing, and no such violations appeared in public records as of Tuesday.

Admin. note: There is no city Broken Facades program, I just made it up. Although they are free to use it as long as they stay motivated to regulate these buildings.

 

The many sidewalk sheds of Queens

From the Queens Chronicle:

For years, residents of the city have been looking at levels of large metal-and-wood structures obstructing their views and detracting from the architecture of their workplaces. Some forms of the composition remain standing for a few weeks, while others become multiyear props that stir controversy among community members.

Often referred to as “sidewalk sheds,” the structures are erected over sidewalks to shield pedestrians from falling debris caused by building construction. According to the city Department of Buildings, the sheds are temporary structures meant to keep sidewalks open for pedestrians while structures undergo renovations.

Residents of Queens are quite familiar with them.

According to an interactive online map released in April by the DOB, the borough has 961 active sheds that stretch over 240,000 linear feet. As of Monday, it was noted that each shed is up for an average of 371 days. But many remain in place for several years.

Some note that they’re unattractive. Others cite the purpose they serve.

Continuing the fight against scaffold blight

From PIX11:

There are more than 280 miles of scaffolding all around the city— and one city council member is renewing his push to help bring down as much of it as possible.

The scaffolding and elevated sheds are designed to protect pedestrians from construction and crumbling facades.

However, with almost 8000 buildings wrapped in scaffolding, City Councilmember Ben Kallos said what it comes down to is many landlords just leave the scaffolding up instead of laying down cash for necessary repairs.

“We should not see scaffolding sitting with no work getting done for seven days, and they need to get the work done within six months of the city will step in and do the work and make the bad landlords pay,” Kallos said.

Kallos pushed for the new law last legislative session but ran out of time. He will reintroduce the bill this week, pledging to continue the fight.

Those never-ending sidewalk sheds

From NY1:

The scaffolding surrounds a city-owned building that is used as a homeless shelter. It went up four years ago to prevent parts of the deteriorating facade from falling onto the sidewalk. But since then, the city hasn't done anything to repair that facade.

"I think the city should be embarrassed about any scaffolding around any city building," City Councilman Ben Kallos said.

This scaffolding highlights a citywide problem of landlords erecting sidewalk sheds and not taking them down.

One building has had scaffolding since 2006. Another in East Harlem has had one for ten years, as has a building in Chelsea, all of which are seen in the video above.

Kallos has proposed legislation to end the nuisances and eyesores of perpetual scaffoldings.

"Anytime somebody puts up the scaffolding, they have to immediately start work or take it back down, and if they can't afford to do the work, the city would end up doing for them and charging for them later," Kallos said.

There are 7,800 active sidewalk shed permits, half of which are in Manhattan.

A law requires owners of buildings taller than six stories to erect scaffolding every five years to inspect the facades.

Landlords who don't make the repairs in 90 days face fines of $1,000 a month. But some choose to leave the scaffolding up and pay the fines to avoid costly facade repairs.

Worker falls off scaffold and dies

From the Daily News:

A worker took a fatal three-story plunge from a scaffolding outside a Brooklyn building Sunday afternoon, authorities said.

The 58-year-old man was on a platform at the building on Nostrand Ave. near Linden Blvd. in East Flatbush at 12:45 p.m. when he fell , police said.

He suffered severe head trauma and died at Kings County Hospital, according to police. His name was not released.

The city Buildings Department website shows the FDNY requesting an inspection after finding a “loose scaffold” after the fall Sunday. A Buildings Department spokesman said the tragic incident remains under investigation.

Seneca Avenue crazy crap got stopped

You may remember this big steaming pile from a post here last summer - August 2016. Shortly after that post was made, there was a partial stop work order placed on the site. But not for the questionable mezzanine (DOB made sure to mention that is was A-OK) - for an unsafe scaffold. All these months later, per DOB precords, it doesn't look like they've rectified that situation, and work has seemingly come to a halt.

Time limit proposed for sidewalk sheds

From Metro:

Scaffolding and green makeshift “sidewalk sheds” seem to be everywhere in New York, and in some places, around forever. A Manhattan city council member is pushing a bill that would limit the amount of time a scaffold can be in place.

Council Member Ben Kallos introduced legislation Tuesday that would give building owners up to six months to finish repairs and take scaffolding down. If there is no construction done in a week, the bill would also require the scaffolding to be taken down.

The bill would set a 90-day deadline for building owners to fix a dangerous condition, according to Kallos' office. Another 90 days could be requested if an extension is required.

After the deadline, the city would finish the construction work or repairs and the building owner would have to foot the bill.

If construction is halted for seven days or more, the scaffolding would have to be removed, if the bill passes.

The scaffolding that won't come down

From NBC:

Scaffolding covers buildings, protects sidewalks -- and it's often an eyesore. In some cases, they have a serious effect on nearby businesses. Andrew Siff reports.


From NBC:

Some 'zombie scaffolding' are staying up around buildings across the city for nearly a decade, creating eyesores for neighbors. As Andrew Siff reports, many landlords do it for cost-effective purposes. Watch Part 1 of the zombie scaffolding report here.

Sidewalk sheds - an epidemic eyesore

From Crains:

Across the city, sidewalk sheds and scaffolding spread like kudzu. They devour precious sidewalk space, cut off sunlight, create safety hazards and hurt businesses. There are now nearly 9,000 sheds entombing city streets, according to the Department of Buildings, up from about 3,500 in 2003. That's 190 miles worth of sheds, or 1 million linear feet—equal to the distance between Gansevoort Street in the West Village and the hamlet of Gansevoort in upstate Saratoga County.

The unprecedented demand is driven in part by the new wave of construction fueled by the city's robust economy. But there's another, more important reason: Thirty-six years ago, the city passed a law requiring regular inspections of older buildings to ensure concrete and bricks don't fall on pedestrians. And since then, the City Council has strengthened the law while adding new ones, giving rise to an industry that generates $1 billion a year—$200 million of that is for the street-level sheds, and the rest pays for the scaffolding and the workers who repair the façades.

Sheds themselves can be safety hazards. Last year, Mayor Bill de Blasio described sheds as "great for criminals as a place to hide" and "great for folks who want to throw their trash on top." On Jan. 8, his administration announced a "shed safety sweep" in which inspectors will examine sheds to ensure they're well-lit and code-compliant. In 2007, a New York police officer chasing a suspect slammed into a poorly lit shed at the corner of Riverside Drive and West 109th Street, and was injured. "I never saw the pole ... the light was--it was black, dark," the officer later testified. Small-business owners complain that sheds obscure signs and shop windows and drive potential clients across the street. Last month, the Upper West Side's Ocean Grill shut down after a shed and construction noise drove away customers, according to a lawsuit the owners filed against their landlord. BLT Fish in the Flatiron district called a shed outside its restaurant a "kiss of death" in a 2013 lawsuit against its landlord that was settled a few months ago.

Residents loathe sheds because some never go away.

City wants money back from crooked Queens contractors

From the Daily News:

The housing authority paid $8 million to a Queens scaffolding company it now says was run by a couple of crooks operating right under their noses.

And now they want it all back.

Two weeks ago, NYCHA lawyers sued Metropolitan Bridge & Scaffolds Corp., demanding repayment of everything the firm has pocketed since it first won a contract to put up sidewalk sheds across the city in 2009.

The actions of Metropolitan and its principals are now the subject of an inquiry by the city Investigation Department, according to sources familiar with the matter.

NYCHA picked Metropolitan as the lowest responsible bidder a mere three months after the two men who founded the firm were busted on bribery charges.

What to do with an ugly construction fence

From DNA Info:

One Long Island City resident has found a way to jazz up one of the city's most ubiquitous eyesores: construction scaffolding.

Chris Carlson was looking for a way to make his surroundings a little more cheery after a wall of scaffolding was erected a little over a year ago, next door to his home on 47th Road, where a developer is building a new apartment complex.

The 43-year-old said he first got permission from construction workers at the site to paint the scaffolding a vibrant blue, and then took to regularly decorating the plywood with posters and funky art.

Fugliness on 80th Street

The things people do to their homes never ceases to amaze me. Here we are at 62-51 80th Street in Middle Village. The owner was hit with a partial stop work order last week because of the unsafe scaffolding.
The permit they have is for: NEW 2 STORY PLUS CELLAR BRICK & BLOCK ADDITION TO EXISTING 1 FAMILY RESIDENCE. This will in effect eliminate most of their yard.

Why not just buy a bigger house?

WTC rescue effort has happy ending

From the NY Times:

New York City firefighters on Wednesday afternoon rescued two window washers who became suspended 69 stories above the street while working at the newly completed 1 World Trade Center.

The workers, who were harnessed to the scaffolding of the window-washing equipment, were uninjured, the authorities said.

Shortly before 2 p.m., firefighters could be seen cutting a hole through a window near the platform, assembling inside and pulling the workers to safety.

Fire Commissioner Daniel A. Nigro was succinct in summing up the efforts made during the day: “The results today — two men are going to go home tonight.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio, speaking at a news conference in Lower Manhattan, called the rescue “an extraordinary effort by the F.D.N.Y.”

School scaffold up prematurely

From the Queens Courier:

As a new school year starts, students at a Bayside elementary school will find their school shrouded in scaffolding and mesh for a building project that doesn’t yet exist, according to city officials.

The city put the scaffolding up last school year at P.S. 162, according to a DOE spokeswoman, who said the project is still in its planning stage and designs for the project haven’t been made.

The K-5 school, which was built in 1936, was chosen for an “exterior modernization project” that would replace and repair the roof, parapets, windows and exterior masonry.

Gut renovation done without approval

65-11 Grand Avenue in Maspeth has been in rough shape for a really long time. Rumor had it that a reclusive elderly lady lived inside - alone - who couldn't keep the place up. So it was a relief to many to finally see a scaffold erected and work begin on the property.

Alas, the operation was quickly shut down, and now the rickety shrouded scaffold remains. (It usually helps to get approval of your plans before you start gutting the place.)

They faked it

From the NY Times:

A building inspector visited a scaffolding last summer on East 90th Street in Manhattan, where workers were restoring the exterior of an apartment building. The inspector noticed something amiss in the site’s safety log: The safety manager who had supposedly signed the log that day could not have done so; he had recently died.

That oddity led New York City officials to investigate, and on Wednesday criminal charges were filed against two companies that provide safety managers at construction sites. The companies, Avanti Building Consultants and NYCB Engineering Group, were accused of hiring unqualified people to pose as licensed site safety managers.

The companies hired people through Craigslist — hairdressers, short-order cooks, musicians, day laborers — to pretend to be safety managers, court papers said. In dozens of cases, the employees skipped the inspections and forged the signatures of real site safety managers on logs, the papers said.

The Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., said the companies compromised safety at 43 sites in New York City over two years, mostly older scaffolded buildings where workers were restoring facades. Three managers and four employees were arrested on Wednesday.

Deadly worksite shut down

From NY1:

The Department of Buildings has slammed a contractor with 41 violations after a construction worker fell to his death from a Midtown office building Monday.

Most of the violations against Stonehenge Restoration were related to safety.

The DOB said the worker who died was not wearing a harness before falling 12 stories onto a sidewalk shed.

Officials said there was also a lack of guardrails and no sign the scaffolding was inspected daily.

Other violations were for work without a permit, illegal signs and failure to report an accident.

The DOB immediately issued a full stop work order.

Worker dies in fall

From NBC:

Authorities say a construction worker died after a 10-story fall from the roof of a midtown Manhattan office building.

Authorities say the man landed on scaffolding about 25 feet above the sidewalk on the south side of West 33rd Street between Ninth and Tenth avenues. It happened about 3:30 p.m. Monday.

Police diverted traffic from the street. Detectives were investigating the cause of the fall. Some were seen peering out at the scaffolding from a second-floor window.

Worker dies in fall from scaffold

From the Daily News:

A worker fell to his death from scaffolding outside the Dream New York hotel in Midtown on Wednesday afternoon, plummeting eight stories, cops said.

The man landed on top of a sidewalk shed covering the front entrance of the luxury hotel on W. 55th St., police and witnesses said.

“He was working on the scaffolding and he fell,” Jennifer Harvey, 36, said. “ It was absolutely horrible. It’s something I can’t unsee.”

The worker, believed to be in his 40s, was working alone on the hotel’s façade about 2:10 p.m., cops on the scene said. He was not immediately identified.

Worker dies at NYU construction site

From Metro:

A construction worker is dead after falling from scaffolding on the sixth floor of a New York University building on Friday, police said.

Jamie Sillart, 56, of Bergenfield, N.J., was working on the façade of NYU’s Languages and Literature Building at 19 University Place when he slipped and fell from his perch around 11:30 a.m. He landed on the adjacent rooftop of the NYU Cantor Film Center at 269 Greene Street, police said.

Sillart, who was working for D.P. Consulting Corp., was taken to Bellevue Hospital where he was pronounced dead.