Council Speaker Corey Johnson proposes more zoning permits for developers to build elevators for train stations

AM New York


Changes to the city's zoning rules could greatly expand the accessibility of the New York subway system at a fraction of the cost to the MTA, City Council Speaker Corey Johnson hopes.


In a new report, Johnson outlines still vague proposals to expand through zoning the number of areas where developers are permitted to bulk up the size of their projects in exchange for undertaking accessibility upgrades in nearby subway stations. Only a limited number of areas are currently zoned for that. 


The speaker also suggested speeding up the lengthy approval process for allowing such accessibility projects once the areas are rezoned.

“All New Yorkers deserve equal access to their city and we must do everything in our power to accelerate the implementation of ADA accessibility in the transit system,” said Johnson. “Zoning is a tool that the City has within our control and with stronger and more widely applied zoning tools, we can ensure that developers who build near subway stations coordinate with the MTA and help deliver the station improvements like elevators that we so desperately need."


The subway system is embarrassingly inaccessible to riders with disabilities, with just about a quarter of all 472 stations equipped with elevators. After what advocates say were decades of neglect and underinvestment, MTA Transit President Andy Byford last year joined the authority pledging to improve accessibility. The MTA’s proposed capital plan would make up to 70 stations ADA accessible — but at an average of $81 million per project, a figure that alarmed some and appears much higher than peer cities, according to researchers.

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Aqueduct Station elevator run by Resorts World never works.

Photo by Jose Martinez/The City

The City

 A parts problem was to blame for problems at the Aqueduct Racetrack stop on the A train — whose privately maintained elevator was available just 33.5% of the time in the first three months of 2019 because of broken glass.

“That’s not a good number,” said Cynthia Lewis of Queens, a regular at the Resorts World Casino New York City at Aqueduct. “They should work harder to make sure it works all the time.”

“They don’t even fix the slot machines,” said another woman at the subway station, who asked to be identified only as Leslie. “Why should they fix their elevator?”

 But global casino king Genting — which operates Resorts World Casino New York City and maintains the elevator — had to order custom-made glass before the elevator could resume transporting riders between the platform and a parking lot. The company says MTA specifications are to blame.

“Accessibility to our facility is a key priority and we monitor this elevator closely to ensure it is providing the service to those who need it,” a spokesperson for Resorts World Casino told THE CITY. “As soon as the MTA alerts us to an issue, we immediately dispatch a maintenance crew, which helps to keep it in service.”

Astoria Blvd. train station will be out of service for almost a year.

 

Queens Eagle

The heavily trafficked Astoria Blvd. Station will close for nine months beginning on March 17 so that the MTA can install several ADA-accessible elevators and reconstruct the mezzanine.

The station, which first opened in February 1902, served more than 13,000 Astoria commuters per day in 2017 according to MTA data, but it lacks ADA accessibility. The upcoming renovations include the installation of four elevators to service the station, as well as raising the station’s mezzanine in order to better accommodate street-level truck traffic.

“We’ve been on a steady march of improvement work on the entire Astoria Line to increase reliability and improve safety and the customer experience, and this elevator project is a huge win for our customers,” said MTA New York City Transit President Andy Byford. “Raising the height of the station is also vitally important for our train service and structure as well as the vehicles that use the streets below those elevated tracks.”

District 22 Councilmember Costa Constantinides said the single-subway line neighborhood was long overdue for an ADA-accessible station, after previous Astoria subway station renovations left much to be desired. Currently, none of the neighborhood’s N/W train stations have elevators.

“As someone who catches the train at Astoria Boulevard almost daily, I can tell you this station desperately needs the pending upgrades," Constantinides told the Eagle. "I'm glad to see the MTA finally decided to give in-need Astoria riders elevator access — only after doing vanity upgrades to four other stations when we explicitly requested they become ADA-compliant. As we move forward on the discussion about municipal control of the subway system, I hope future upgrades will account for the needs of the community, so people don't have to trek several blocks just to access an elevator."

Nine months? That is to laugh. Keep an eye on this Astoria, because it took four years to put up one elevator and new staircases at the Lefferts Blvd. station that I chronicled on for two years on Impunity City.

Elevator inspections are lax

From PIX11:

Subcontractors paid by New York City’s Department of Buildings are — in thousands of cases — not properly inspecting elevators, a report by the New York State Comptroller’s office alleges.

The City Department of Buildings is responsible for inspecting 71,000 elevators every year. To do this, an army of subcontractors are hired. In some cases lack of data suggests inspections mights not be happening at all.

A multi-year audit by the Comptroller said there is no data for thousands of inspections assigned to those sub-contractors. In 2016, more than 6,700 inspections may have been skipped. In 2015, 8,800 inspections were possibly ignored.

Lefferts Blvd elevator finally open

From Impunity City:

In what I admit could be an aberration in the usual posts that get written here, here is an actual good news bulletin and sign of albeit late ass civic progress. As reported here since this digital publication’s inception, it took almost 4 years, but the main entrance of the Lefferts Blvd has completed with the activation of the elevator! And it actually is quite shiny and nice. It official got turned on about a few weeks ago about 4 months ahead of the proposed 3rd quarter deadline.

2 workers die in falls in separate incidents

From PIX11:

A 26-year-old man doing repairs on a Queens roof was the second man killed in a fall Tuesday.

John Davie fell to the ground from a Saunders Street building around just before 3 p.m., police said. He suffered severe trauma to his head and body in the fall.

A 33-year-old elevator technician was killed in a fall earlier Tuesday. Jucong Wu fell down an elevator shaft while working at a construction site in the Flatiron District. Wu plunged from the ninth floor where he was working to the bottom of the elevator shaft just before 9 a.m.

A man was killed when he fell down an elevator shaft at a Manhattan construction site.

He was employed by U-Tek Elevator, Inc., an NYC Department of Buildings official said. The elevator firm was installing an elevator car at a new 12-story hotel project when the worker, who was not tied to a protective line, fell.

The Buildings Department issued a full stop-work order on the construction project.

Elevator finally opens at Briarwood

From DNA Info:

Straphangers got a welcome surprise at the Briarwood subway station as they headed to work Monday morning — the elevator was finally running, three years after it was initially scheduled to be completed in 2014.

The elevator at the Briarwood station, which serves the E and F trains, was built as part of the $159 million Kew Gardens Interchange project, conducted by the state Department of Transportation in order to widen the nearby Van Wyck Expressway.

It was delayed many times, most recently due to 1,000-pound "specialized equipment that needed to be ordered to complete work on the elevator" necessary for its security cameras, fire alarm and intercom, the DOT said in March.

The equipment was later installed in the MTA’s communications room, officials said.

The elevator finally opened on Sunday afternoon, locals said.

Elderly and infirm residents are trapped in their building

From PIX11:

Imagine you have no elevator service for a month and you're a senior citizen or have serious health issues.

That's what dozens of residents in a Kew Gardens apartment building are coping with.

"We do the best we can," Sidney Tesher, an 87-year-old tenant of the Austin Street building, told PIX11. "Excuse me for being out of breath."

PIX11 News reached out to the building's management company, PSRS Realty Group, for comment, but has not received a response.

Nobody was working on the elevator when PIX11 was there. The realty group told residents in a sign in the building that elevator service will be restored on Jan. 18.

Kew Gardens Interchange work complete

From DNA Info:

Driving around Queens may now be a bit less frustrating, after a major phase of the lengthy Kew Gardens Interchange Project was completed six years after it started, officials said.

The state Department of Transportation just finalized the $159 million reconstruction of a large portion of the Van Wyck Expressway in Kew Gardens and Briarwood, which seeks to reduce congestion and ease traffic flow in the area, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Thursday.

That phase of the Kew Gardens Interchange project included:

► reconstructing and widening the Van Wyck Expressway between 82nd and Hillside avenues;

► reconstructing the exit ramp from the northbound Van Wyck Expressway to westbound Queens Boulevard;

► constructing several bridges over the Van Wyck Expressway, including the Queens Boulevard Bridge over Main Street;

► building an extra lane on the Van Wyck Expressway between the Grand Central Parkway and Queens Boulevard;

► constructing a dedicated exit lane on the southbound Van Wyck Expressway to Hillside Avenue.

Residents will still, however, have to wait a bit longer for a new elevator at the Briarwood subway station, which was built as part of the project, as well as for three pedestrian plazas and landscaping along Queens Boulevard planned for the Kew Gardens and Briarwood area after it was overtaken by the construction project for many years.

Maspeth shelter provider's history of protecting the homeless and communities is abysmal

The shelter "service provider" for the Maspeth Holiday Inn is Acacia Network.

If you're opposed to the shelter in Maspeth then you need to read the following very carefully, because Mayor de Blasio will be sending this your way in less than 60 days.

From State Senator Ruben Diaz:

You should know that this past Friday, November 13, 2015, a woman who resides at the homeless shelter located at 941 Intervale Avenue, Bronx, New York, was reportedly stabbed by a resident of the same shelter. The shelter, which is run by Acacia Network is across the street, right in front of my District Office.

According to reports and statements people have given me, the perpetrator was caught on tape breaking the security cameras in the homeless shelter during the weekend (November 7 - 8) before Friday’s stabbing.

The assailant’s vandalism did not come to Acacia’s attention until Monday, November 9, because no one on Acacia’s staff took a look at the cameras over the weekend. On Tuesday, November 10th, Acacia’s staff reported the destroyed cameras to the police, providing copies of the video tapes to the 41st Precinct, with footage of the suspect smashing the security cameras.

Even though Acacia gave this information to the police, the perpetrator was not questioned or arrested until after Friday’s stabbing took place.

The family shelter residents at 941 Intervale Avenue went unprotected for a whole week without their building’s security cameras working, and with no one to check for their safety.
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From Crains:

In March, the Department of Investigation issued a blistering report about odious conditions at cluster sites citywide, including at facilities run by two of the organizations soon to win new contracts, Acacia Network and Bushwick Economic Development Corp., known as BEDCO.

“At the time of the inspection, one elevator was broken and stuck on the sixth floor,” the report said of an Acacia site. “The other had a large puddle of urine on the floor.” It noted a broken window with glass strewn across the hallway of the facility for homeless families.

The poor conditions have been corrected, Acacia said in a statement.

The city paid $95 a night, on average, for the Acacia apartments — two to three times what market-rate tenants pay in those neighborhoods, according to the report from Department of Investigations Commissioner Mark Peters.
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From QNS:

On Feb. 11, police responded to a call of a dispute among shelter roommates. A woman struck her roommate with a metal object and was placed under arrest, Fortune said.

Officers brought her to Weill Cornell Medical Center, the medical school at Cornell University, to be treated. While police were escorting the woman out of the ambulance, Fortune said, she became “very aggressive” and headbutted an officer, who sustained minor injuries.

Because the woman was arrested, police were responsible for watching her until she was released, he said. The next day, the patient became aggressive again and hit an officer with a metal IV pole and kicked him several times.

Police were called to the shelter again on Feb. 12 when a resident who refused to go through the metal detector broke the device. She then proceeded to throw chairs and soda bottles in the lobby. The woman was arrested and transported to Weill Cornell Medicine for a psychiatric evaluation.

Fortune also added that police have had to respond to calls of residents trying to hurt themselves and a chronic 911 call from someone who has repeatedly reported that a woman was stabbed inside the shelter. The precinct has also received complaints of women harassing store owners in the area.

District Manager Florence Koulouris, who attends monthly community advisory meetings with staff at the shelter, said there have also been issues with “aggressive panhandling.” Some women at the shelter frequently steal from a local pharmacy and businesses in the area, she said. Acacia Network, the service providers for the shelter, said its security staff would do roving car patrols to monitor the women when they are out of the shelter but have not been doing an adequate job, according to Koulouris.

“The problem is we’ve been getting a lot of excuses [from Acacia Network] because [they always say] there are problems with the vehicle, the vehicle is in the shop,” Koulouris said. “Supposedly they’re using private unmarked cars for this which is completely unacceptable because the patients of The Verve … they don’t see the cars. Their awareness is down and they tend to act inappropriate.”

Fortune said he has been in contact with Acacia Network to discuss the two recent violent incidents, which they were unaware of.

“They should know what’s going on over there,” Fortune said. “When I told them some of these incidents, they had no idea that this was even happening. In fact, they asked me for names of who was involved.”
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From the Queens Chronicle

“The reports from the 114th Precinct are disconcerting,” City Council Majority Leader Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Sunnyside) said in a statement. “I have voiced my concerns about the shelter to the Department of Homeless Services and the Administration.”

Van Bramer added he was particularly troubled by reports that the provider of services at the shelter, Acacia Network, had not been doing adequate neighborhood patrols.

“The Administration has confirmed to my office that they will be adding additional security officers at the Verve shelter,” he said.

Not long after the shelter opened, officials acknowledged some concerns had been raised about overcrowding and residents loitering outside the building. But local business owners have also complained that residents have been harassing them and causing disturbances.

Jeff Franco, who works at the nearby LIC Deli & Grocery, said there have been instances of the women fighting, panhandling and stealing from the store. Those sorts of things can make others in the neighborhood, including tourists staying in hotels, hesitant to shop there, he said.

“Your business goes down because people don’t feel like coming here,” he said.

Ali, who works at the Saz Deli & Grocery on 31st Street but declined to give his last name, said he had called police on more than one occasion after incidents involving women from the shelter.

“They give me too much of a hard time,” he said.

According to Koulouris, Acacia is supposed to conduct neighborhood patrols in a marked car. But the service provider has said recently the car was out of service and it was instead doing patrols in private, unmarked vehicles.

Koulouris called that “unacceptable” and said there should be a visible security presence in the community. On a recent Saturday, a white SUV marked Sera Security could be seen outside the shelter.

Nevertheless, Koulouris said, Acacia made a promise to take care of its clients and be a good neighbor in the community.

“Right now, Acacia is not being a good neighbor,” she said.

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From the Bronx Chronicle:

Community members are outraged after a former Bronx motel turned homeless shelter has two registered sex offenders living in the facility.

The former hot-sheets motel, Capri-Whitestone, known for it’s blood stained mattresses and bed bugs closed last year with the hope from community members that it would be developed into something that would accompany Donald Trump’s new golf course. Instead, the motel was turned over to Acacia Network, a non-profit organization that opened the building as a homeless shelter for families.

However, there are currently two registered sex offenders, Curtis Bolden and James Bryant who are listed as living at the shelter.

According to the NY State Division of Criminal Justice website (a publicly accessible website), Curtis Bolden was convicted in 1980 for raping two women. James Bryant was convicted in 2004 for aggressive sexual assault of a 7 year old child. Bolden is listed a level 3 offender while Bryant is a level 2 offender.

A level 3 offender is considered at high risk of repeat offenses and a threat to public safety, as stated by the NY State Division of Criminal Justice website.
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Why does the de Blasio administration insist on entering into contracts with a provider that has a documented terrible history? Who else out there can totally fail at their work and get rewarded with more work?

Elevator installed without permits kills worker

From DNA Info:

The small business where an employee was crushed to death by an elevator Saturday night was padlocked shut Monday — as officials look into whether the lift was installed illegally.

The shop, La Reguera Dominicana at 552 W. 182 St., where locals shopped for discounted home items and clothes, was ordered closed after Jose Fernandez, 43, was fatally pinned by the supply elevator Saturday night, sources said.

Yellow fire tape and a padlocked chain crisscrossed a fence outside the store and a pair of Buildings Department orders — in English and Spanish — announced that the property had been ordered vacated.

The Department of Buildings, which issued the vacate order, said they had no records of an elevator having been legally installed on the property.

Worker didn't have to die

From the Daily News:

A worker who fell to his death at a Midtown construction site was riding an elevator powered by an “unsafe” jerry-rigged electrical system, the Daily News has learned.

Christian Ginesi and a co-worker were on a temporary hoist — common at construction sites — headed to the top of a hotel being built on Eighth Ave. on May 5 when the lift stalled between the 24th and 25th floors.

Ginesi’s colleague successfully jumped from the lift to the lower floor, but Ginesi slipped and plummeted 24 stories to his death.

Since then, city building inspectors looking into the cause of the accident discovered the lift suddenly lost power that day, and the electrical system that powered it was installed without a permit.

The elevator relied on “unapproved, unsafe, unsuitable electrical equipment” that shouldn’t have been in use, documents show.

Pols call for heightened safety at construction sites

From CBS New York:

City officials are calling for improved safety measures at construction sites after a worker fell to his death in Manhattan this week.

As WCBS 880’s Jim Smith reported, standing at the construction site at 46th Street and Eighth Avenue where the worker fell to his death down an elevator shaft, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer said, “Here was a grim responsibility to demand safety in and around New York City’s construction sites.”

Brewer said the city already this year has surpassed the eight construction deaths in all of the previous year.

The Department of Buildings says it takes aggressive enforcement action against unsafe construction professionals. It says development is at an all-time high, and with that comes more accidents.

Sure, they'll call for action at the hearing, then forget about it until the next death. After all, there's money to be made by the people who line their pockets.

Melinda, fix thine own house

I ask that you not use my name or email address.

My wife works in Borough Hall which has 2 elevators:

An old one which is intermittent in working.
A new one which didn't pass Inspection.

We are getting to a situation akin to this.

Sit vis nobiscum,
May the force be with you

- Anonymous

Delivery guy caught peeing in apartment elevator

From WPIX:

A building manager in Queens was shocked after what he saw a pizza delivery man doing in the apartment elevator. And it was all caught on camera.

The Mitchell Gardens building manager in Flushing, Queens reached out to PIX11 Investigates and asked for our help.

It seems they’d caught a pizza delivery man from a nearby restaurant on videotape. It showed him peeing in one of their elevators.

Elevators out of service for months at Howard Beach complex

From WPIX:

What goes up must come down. Unless it’s an elevator at the Dorchester complex in Howard Beach. In that case, the elevator may be going nowhere.

I had to go back out there earlier this month. And I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it.

There are two buildings. Over the winter they had problems in the Dorchester Two. The elevator was out. Senior citizens, including a World War II vet, were forced to use the stairs if they could.

And I ran into two very unpleasant people. A VP of the co-op board and a foul-mouthed secretary in the management office who actually called the NYPD on me. Even though we were invited in by owners, she claimed we had no righto be there.

Imagine that.

Anyway, we helped expedite the long-delayed elevator repairs.

But now the same situation arose in the other building, the Dorchester One. I’m told that secretary no longer works at the complex. But the problem was still severe. Five months without a functioning elevator!

Contractor falls down elevator shaft and dies

From NBC:

A contractor working on an elevator in Queens fell five stories to his death Thursday morning when his harness apparently malfunctioned and he plummeted down the shaft, law enforcement sources say.

The harness apparently malfunctioned as the man was working on the elevator from the fifth floor of what will become a new school on 42nd Street in Sunnyside. A man working from the fourth floor was hit by debris as his colleague fell, but his harness held, law enforcement sources say.

MTA installs non-functioning elevator

From NY1:

An elevator at a Queens subway station that opened to much fanfare on Friday broke Saturday after only one day in use.

As NY1 reported, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority heralded its newly ADA-compliant Forest Hills-71st Avenue subway stop with some pomp and circumstance, but now, the elevator that takes riders from the street to the station is out of service.

One Twitter user captured a photo that they say shows fire officials rescuing someone who got stuck when it stopped working.

Main Street elevators get green light

From the Queens Chronicle:

The board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority on Wednesday gave its Real Estate Department the go-ahead to acquire property that will be essential for the installation of elevators at the Long Island Rail Road’s Flushing-Main Street station.

LIRR spokesman Salvatore Arena said Tuesday that the board’s Finance Committee had voted to recommend the purchase.

The land in question sits at 40-36 Main St., just north of the Main Street trestle. It is occupied by the Ou Jiang City Supermarket.

A planned $8.5 million renovation of the station will include the installation of elevators on both sides of the tracks, which right now are not handicapped-accessible.

While the resolution does include the possibility of taking the land if necessary, a statement issued by the MTA said both its legal and real estate divisions have been in contact with the property owner and the store owner since before a public hearing held last Oct. 28, and that they will work to reach a negotiated price in an effort to avoid eminent domain proceedings.

In response to concerns raised at the hearing by Councilman Peter Koo (D-Flushing), the MTA said its staff will continue working with both owners in an effort “to address their concerns and mitigate impacts as much as is reasonably possible.”

Elevator woes at Hollis building

From Eyewitness News:

Residents of a Queens apartment building are frustrated.

Many of them who are elderly are living without a working elevator.

It's been broken for nearly three months.

For those with serious medical conditions getting up and down the stairs is agonizing.

Tenants say the building's super posted a sign back on January 7th saying it would take four to six weeks to repair the elevator.

Now going into week 12, they say their complaints are falling on deaf ears.