Hope for the Lefferts Ave bridge

From the Queens Chronicle:

At a Wednesday meeting with elected officials and civic leaders, Long Island Rail Road President Phillip Eng said the MTA has devised a plan to save the Kew Gardens span and the handful of small businesses on top of it, according to multiple people who were at the gathering.

“It was a productive meeting. The LIRR came back and said there’s a way to fix the bridge to make it stable,” Assemblyman Daniel Rosenthal (D-Flushing) told the Chronicle on Wednesday. “There’s a very clear pathway forward to rehabilitate the bridge. Nothing is done until its done, but it was a very optimistic meeting.”

The MTA originally said last May that the century-old span had decayed to the point where it would have to be torn down come 2020 — the year the entrepreneurs’ collective lease expires.

But in the 14 months since, mass community outrage led to both the MTA softening its position and state lawmakers passing legislation calling for a bridge rehabilitation feasibility study.

Councilwoman Karen Koslowitz (D-Forest Hills) even allocated $1 million for one.

But shortly after Eng took over as the head of the LIRR, he met with area lawmakers and civic leaders in June to hear their concerns and discuss how to potentially save the span.

In the following six weeks, Rosenthal said, Eng stayed true to his word.

“I’m not an engineer, but there is a way to — underneath the bridge — remove the deteriorating concrete and replace it,” the assemblyman said. “Today, [the LIRR] came back and they showed it was more than just words. They showed they have a realistic, tenable plan.”

No one can explain why expensive bridge went bad

From the NY Times:

It was supposed to be the coolest little bridge in New York City. Designed by the winner of a MacArthur “genius” grant and built at a cost of $4.1 million, it zigzagged just 400 feet down from Brooklyn Heights to the waterfront, bouncing slightly underfoot and adding a touch of rustic adventure to the bustling Brooklyn Bridge Park.

But the pedestrian bridge, which opened in March 2013, soon bounced a little too much. Then it started to move from side to side. Then, last August, it was closed abruptly — and temporarily — park officials said. By October, the target reopening date was amended to spring.

Now, with spring well underway, officials for the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation, which operates the park, still do not have an exact date for when the Squibb Park Bridge, as it is formally known, will reopen, though they say it will be sometime in late spring.

Nor could they specify what went wrong. Belinda Cape, a spokeswoman for the park corporation, attributed the problem broadly to a “misalignment” issue. “Engineers have been working to correct the issue and repair the bridge,” she said. “They’re pulling it back into alignment and testing it, section by section.”

In the absence of an explanation, park officials and local residents have speculated that construction at two nearby sites may have compromised the bridge, or maybe it was the tendency of teenagers to jump en masse to accentuate the bounce.

“In an environment like this, if people find out something is moving, they are going to move it to the max, especially younger kids,” said Nick Ivanoff, president of Ammann & Whitney, a leading bridge engineering firm that was not involved in the project.

Those answers have not been enough for elected officials like State Senator Daniel L. Squadron, a Democrat whose district includes Brooklyn Bridge Park. He has called on the park corporation to provide a full accounting of the bridge’s defects and to recoup the cost of repairs, estimated at about $700,000.

Park officials say they planned to do both, although they declined to say whether they would also sue the engineer who designed the bridge.

Don't worry, it's supposed to look like that

From NBC:

A new building being constructed in Union Square has triggered concerns among neighbors and passersby who think the structure looks crooked, but officials say it's all part of the design.

The building going up on Fifth Avenue and 14th Street will eventually become the new home of the New School's University Center, housing a dormitory, cafeteria and auditorium.

But as it's being constructed, some of the columns holding up the concrete floors don't appear straight.

But it's no mistake, according to the dean at Parsons' New School for Design, which is part of The New School. Instead, it's an engineering achievement.

Why?

From the Daily News:

New York will spend up to $250,000 to jump-start the idea of extending the 7 train all the way to Secaucus, N.J. - but New Jersey hasn't pitched in a dime.

The city hired engineering firm Parsons Brinckerhoff this week to analyze how many riders the line could serve, how they would connect to the NJTransit train hub in Secaucus and - most importantly - how much it would cost.

Their study is due in three months, which Deputy Mayor Robert Steel said will help show government and transportation agencies in the region whether to go forward.

Other officials in New York and New Jersey are looking at the idea, but haven't put up any cash to make it happen.

It could give New Jersey residents their first direct train line to Grand Central Terminal, as well as to see the Mets or the U.S. Open in Queens.

The city is paying $2.1 billion to extend the 7 train to 34th St. and 11th Ave., where it will serve a massive office and housing development planned for the West Side rail yards.

MTA budget bloat

From the Daily News:

Infighting and faulty oversight has pushed the MTA's big-ticket megaprojects nearly $2 billion over budget and up to five years behind schedule, a damning new report says.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority's extension of the Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central Terminal may not be completed until April 2018, five years late, the report from MTA Inspector Barry Kluger found.

The LIRR link, the Second Ave. subway and the Fulton Transit Center projects, are a combined $1.93 billion over budget.

"The failure to complete megaprojects on time and within budget has raised serious concerns...and indicates a need for more effective oversight," the report said.

Kluger's probers say managers bicker with consultants and the responsibilities of an outside engineering firm were left unclear. The first leg of the Second Ave. subway project is expected to be completed in 2017, about five years late.

The Fulton Transit Center is about two years behind schedule and is slated for a 2014 finish.

Distressed properties to get assessments

From Crains:

The City Council launched a new program Thursday to give tenants in certain dilapidated properties a new weapon in their battle to improve building conditions. The initiative will focus on properties where excessive debt burdens taken on by the owners have severely limited their financial ability to make necessary repairs.

Engineers and architects, working on a pro-bono basis, will survey such buildings across the five boroughs and produce detailed reports on how extensive the damage is, what repairs are needed and how much those repairs will cost.

"This new program will help level the playing field,” said Maggie Russell-Ciardi, executive director of the advocacy group Tenants and Neighbors. “It will arm tenants with the information they need to determine what a truly supportable mortgage or sale price for their buildings would be. And it will help tenants refute false claims by owners and lenders that everything is fine in buildings that are heading rapidly towards financial failure."

The citywide program is an expansion of a pilot in which New York City-based Baer Architecture Group produced a detailed report on 10 foreclosed-upon Bronx buildings that argues the properties need up to $26.6 million in repairs, more than five times an earlier estimate by the properties' current overseer. The $35 million loan on the buildings—part of a portfolio bought by Los Angeles-based Milbank Real Estate at the height of the housing boom in 2007—is expected to be transferred to a new, undisclosed buyer next week.

Concern is high among elected officials, tenants and housing activists who worry that the properties—which are saddled with 3,261 code violations—will likely deteriorate further because the new owner is paying too much for the portfolio and won't be able to make needed repairs.

Fake contractor in deep doo-doo

House of cards falls on builder
By DAVID SEIFMAN, NY Post

A Queens contractor filed 195 documents over eight years with the city Buildings Department using the name of an unwitting Las Vegas engineer to certify that his work had been done properly, The Post has learned.

Nor was this the first such deception by Tibor Csizmadia, 76. He was imprisoned for four months in 2000 for similarly misusing an architect's name.

The scope of the fraud is so great that 18 months into its audit, the department's only been able to examine 88 of the 195 job sites to ensure their safety.

Csizmadia vanished after confessing on July 22, 2008, according to a criminal complaint. An arrest warrant was issued last August. He could face 183 counts of forgery and falsifying business records.

A department staffer sensed something wrong in March 2008 after getting a routine application from engineer Hsu Lee, whose license had been inactive since January 2007.

Lee told authorities that he left New York in 2000 and had never heard of Csizmadia.

DOI: Astoria engineer lied about balcony inspection

Engineer Vasilios Kourkoumelis busted for lying about inspecting balcony that collapsed in fire

BY Erin Einhorn
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

City investigators busted a Queens engineer Monday for lying about inspecting a balcony that collapsed in a blaze and injured a firefighter.

Vasilios Kourkoumelis, 34, of Astoria, was charged with signing off on the balcony of a building on Kings Highway in Brooklyn - although he never inspected it and it did not comply with city codes.

Department of Investigation Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn said that potentially puts the public at risk.

Kourkoumelis, a licensed engineer, was brought in to certify the balcony was up to code after city officials cited the owner for building balconies them without a permit.

The balcony collapsed in a Dec. 30, 2008, fire that injured firefighter Andrew Shierer, the son of Richard Shierer, who led the Office of Emergency Management under Mayor Giuliani.

News accounts said Shierer fell 30 feet and injured his shoulder, but managed to survive by staying on top of the rubble.

Shierer could not be reached for comment.

Alan Gardner, a lawyer for Kourkoumelis, said there's "more to this case than meets the eye." He did not elaborate.

Counter-terrorism handbook for building owners

From GlobeSt:

Coincidentally with the implementation of the Bloomberg administration’s new construction codes, the Police Department on Wednesday issued a counter-terrorism handbook aimed at owners of medium- and high-risk buildings. The 130-page report is intended to provide guidelines, which are not legally binding, for existing structures as well as future ones. In a preface, Mayor Michael Bloomberg writes that the report “provides sensible guidelines for balancing the important need for security and the realities of urban development.

Prepared by the NYPD’s counter-terrorism bureau, the report, “Engineering Security: Protective Design for High Risk Buildings,” assigns the city’s buildings to either low-, medium- or high-risk categories, and provides recommendations for mitigating these risks. Although it does not identify any specific buildings as high-risk, the report says they’re structures which present several risk factors at once.

These factors range from location to structural design. They include: high-visibility, nationally recognizable architectural designs; proximity to other high-risk buildings or to major infrastructure; a lack of controlled access; the inability to withstand specific blast pressures at certain distances; maximum occupancy of more than 10,000 people or height greater than 800 feet; and key financial or government tenants.

During a presentation at NYPD headquarters on Wednesday, police commissioner Raymond Kelly told building owners that they could access a self-scoring system to determine their own properties’ risk levels. Most buildings in the city fall within the low-risk category, the report states.