1/4 year over with no results

From Impunity City:

Where does the time go? It sure flies when you’re being stagnant, right MTA? Right Governor Cuomo? It’s April 9th as this is written and the station, 10 days after the first quarter of the year. While it has shown some improvement and new structure, is still one bottleneck forming staircase and inoperable elevator poor excuse for a station.

The stairs were supposed to be ready on April 1st. Can’t say enough about the uncanny scheduling as this has made fools of thousands of commuters. Although with the horrendous way the worst transit system in the f*cking universe operates, sometimes at times these little big annoying things seem intentional.

Anyway, there was some encouraging things to see the other day in these first new days of spring as I actually saw life forms donning proper apparel and protective head wear, 3 of them, actually putting the pieces together on the looooooonnnnnggggg anticipated completion of the south stairway.

Lefferts stairs need repair ASAP

From Impunity City by JQLLC:

I have to wonder if Mario’s son, Governor Andy, will take his new found proactive helmetless casual Friday style down to the Dirty Southeast Of Queens and get a look at the Lefferts Blvd. station. Where it takes longer to build a pair of stairs than it is to stuff big trains into little tunnels and have big time artists take months making portraits of themselves.

This was supposed to be completed by Thanksgiving, it should be noted that the other staircase was supposed to be finished last year too and got done in fucking June. I don’t have much hope for the MTA, the worst fucking transit system in the universe, to get it done, even if they have the technology for time travel. Look at that sign taped indelicately to the partition wall.

That’s right, January 2016. That is just awfully discouraging. If only the governor makes the time to assemble a garrison of contractors down to Richmond Hill to fix this miscue.

Emergency communication systems to be mandatory in high rises

From Crains:

Residential buildings more than six stories tall would be required to have emergency communication systems in stairwells, according to legislation proposed Monday by freshman City Councilman Corey Johnson (D-Manhattan) in response to a deadly Hell's Kitchen blaze earlier this month.

"The tragic death at The Strand was entirely preventable," Mr. Johnson said in a statement following a City Hall news conference, referring to the Jan. 5 inferno on the 20th floor of 500 W. 43rd St., at the corner of 10th Avenue.

When 27-year old Daniel McClung and his 32-year old husband Michael Cohen attempted to evacuate the building via an emergency stairwell, smoke from the fire billowed into their path, killing Mr. McClung and critically injuring Mr. Cohen.

The legislation would create a way for first responders and building managers to advise residents on the safest course of action during an emergency. In this case, the system might have been used to alert Messrs. McClung and Cohen to take another route or stay in their home.

Little Neck LIRR staircase in bad shape

"The station overpass at Little Neck was given el cheapo plywood railings, which are falling apart already. Someone is going to get a handful of splinters from this.

I plan on bombarding Lex Luthor Vallone with this stuff when he assumes." - anonymous

DOE makes learning more difficult for injured kid

From CBS New York:

High school senior M’Kayah Walker of Woodside, Queens, said she was injured while playing soccer.

“I was playing soccer. Kids fell on top of me,” she said. “And I found out my knees were dislocated.”

That sports injury has Walker struggling to get around on crutches. But she never dreamed it would disrupt her academic future.

She said making it up the steps and in to William Cullen Bryant High School in Woodside is painful.

Her mother requested home instruction for Walker, allowing the teen to graduate with her peers. The answer was no — not once, but twice.

“Just give me the home schooling so I can get my diploma,” she said.

Instead, the school issued her an elevator pass. But getting to it was tough and then she says she had to wait.

“They have taken more than 15 minutes to open the elevator,” she said. “When I use it, I’m late, and the teachers yell at me.”

Next month, Walker gets surgery to repair her knee. Without home instruction, she believes she won’t be able to graduate until next summer.

Stairs collapse, fire escape unstable, FDNY evacuates kids from roof

From Daily News

From CBS New York:

An early-morning rooftop party in the East Village ended Sunday morning after a stairwell collapsed, sending a man falling at least two stories.

More than 30 college-aged students at the party were trapped on the roof after the accident that occurred around 1 a.m., an FDNY spokesman said. Firefirghters used a ladder and cherry-picker basket to rescue them from the top of the seven-story building at 159 Second Ave., near East 10th Street.

“They also tried to get everyone off the fire escape, but the fire escape is not deemed to code,” a partygoer who lives in the building told WCBS 880′s Monica Miller reported. “So when they were actually trying to get people off, some of the rings were breaking. So that’s why they were bucketing people because there was literally no access in and out of that building, and the elevator wasn’t working either.”

The man who fell was admitted to Bellevue Hospital. He injured his leg and suffered broken ribs and a collapsed lung, 1010 WINS’ Glenn Schuck reported. The man was apparently jumping up and down on the landing.

Trapped in their own home

From CBS 2:  

An elderly couple in Bushwick, Brooklyn claims they are trapped in their own home thanks to a construction project on the stairway out of their multi-family home. 

Robert Foster, 91, is a World War II veteran and said he and his 87-year-old wife both use walkers but have a hard time navigating the 22-inch wide staircase from their Putnam Avenue home to the sidewalk. 

Their neighbor’s improvement project included putting up a fence, which split the original stairwell in two. The neighbor extended her own staircase but the couple’s staircase was left less than two feet wide, which violates code. 

By law, staircases must be at least 36 inches wide. The couple’s daughter said she is concerned the current staircase is a safety hazard.

LIRR staircase closed due to feared building collapse

From Bayside Patch:

The Long Island Rail Road has closed one of the staircases at its Bayside station after an adjacent building was deemed to be in danger of collapsing, community leaders said.

The city's Department of Buildings forced the site's owner, Rani nail salon, to vacate the property, which is located at 41-17 Bell Blvd. next to the LIRR train station.

Bayside leaders said they were concerned not only that the property could collapse, but also that shutting down one of the staircases from the train station to Bell Boulevard could lead to a crowded platform.

"It's dangerous because, theoretically, it could collapse as people are coming up or down the stairs," said Frank Skala, a Community Board 11 member and president of the East Bayside Homeowners Association. "And if that entrance is closed off, then there could be more pushing and shoving on the platform. In the evenings, people come off the train two or three dozen at a time."

According to the DOB's website, the Rani building was vacated following a late August inspection, which found that the property's structural stability was in question due to cracked beams in its basement. In addition, two walls were found to be cracked and shoring had been completed at the site without a permit.