Lots of new construction ends up in court

From The Real Deal:

Construction defects, alleged or otherwise, are a hallmark of any building boom, and the last five years have been no exception. While there are no publicly available numbers on the frequency of such complaints, attorneys say latent defects usually spring up a year or so after buildings open. Many say they are already seeing an uptick, given that construction has been unrelenting since 2012. And they say it’s safe to assume that another wave of lawsuits is about to hit.

Unlike during the financial crisis, when cash-strapped developers may have cut corners to avoid abandoning projects altogether, today’s developers are racing against the clock — and each other — to complete projects in a soft market that’s bracing for even more inventory.

Seeking to save NYC theaters

From Crains:

In a city with 8.6 million residents packed within 303 square miles, aging movie theaters have become a preservation battleground that often pits developers looking to make a profit against elected officials eager to maintain quality of life and residents seeking communal and cultural gathering spaces. After notable failures in recent years such as the American Theater in the Bronx, which is now a Marshalls, and successes such as the Kings Theatre in Flatbush, now a live-performance venue, communities are hoping to find a road map for success with long-empty theaters such as the Metro, RKO Keith in Flushing and the Hamilton in Harlem, among several others.

"There's a desperate need for any space geared toward the community—something for young people and seniors," said Assemblyman Ron Kim, who is eyeing the RKO Keith in his Queens district. Demolition and plans for a large glass condo tower have apparently stalled, and Kim hopes a coming downturn in the Flushing condo market could give the site new life. "There's no place to meet and interact."

Once upon a time New York City did not have multiplexes—it had movie palaces, dazzling buildings that screened movies, hosted vaudeville and became social anchors for their communities. The first was the Regent, built in 1913 by Thomas Lamb at 116th Street and what is now Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard. (Today it is home to the First Corinthian Baptist Church.) Nearly every neighborhood soon had its own palace with an average of 1,800 seats and lavish decorations.

But the rise of television in the 1950s, New York's fiscal crisis in the 1970s and the crime surge in the crack era all played a role in the decline of these movie theaters. Then the subsequent real estate boom made the land beneath them increasingly valuable. Large-screen home entertainment centers and movie streaming on smartphones didn't help. Coupled with the high cost of modernizing theaters for digital projection, the economics of these old picture houses simply didn't work anymore.

More than two dozen movie palaces built between 1910 and 1932 have been closed or razed. Of those still standing, some were transformed into retail stores or gyms; others were reimagined. Frequently they became churches. Even the Ziegfeld Theatre, one of the last single-screen theaters in the country when it opened in 1969, closed in 2016 after converting to digital projection. It is now Ziegfeld Ballroom, an event space.

The movie houses that remain pose challenges to communities and developers alike. While nostalgic locals campaign to turn the projection lights back on, that's typically not a realistic solution.

Pols call for moratorium on property seizures

From PIX11:

Hundreds of homeowners throughout New York City have been defrauded out of their homes. Now, elected officials are calling for a federal investigation into the matter, including whether a city program may be partly to blame.

"There needs to be a moratorium on taking houses from these homeowners until we can make sure that somethings not unethical, illegal, or immoral," said Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams.

Adams says his office has heard dozens of similar stories over the past year: homeowners in rapidly gentrifying areas, like Bed-Stuy, forced out of their homes. He says it's usually been one of three causes:

Forced foreclosures
Deed fraud
City's third party transfer program

"We believe when you have something of this magnitude that could be a large number of black and brown homeowners losing their homes, when the dust settles we cannot look back and say wow we should have paid attention to this," Adams said.

Which is why he and City Council Member Robert Cornegy are calling for a stop on all property seizures pending federal, state, and city investigations. For it's part the city's office of Housing Preservation and Development, which runs the TPT program, says it's unfair to lump it in with other illegal activities scamming people out of their homes.

Stringer subpoenas NYCHA

From CBS 2:

New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer is putting NYCHA’s feet to the fire, alleging the city housing agency is stonewalling efforts to investigate why so many residents have been left without heat or hot water.

Stringer’s office announced that a second subpoena was issued to NYCHA on Friday, demanding they turn over information about multiple outages last winter. On Saturday, the comptroller said the city housing authority had “purposely done everything they can” to delay a year-long audit into the embattled agency.

Will Melissa be appealing to citywide voters?

From AMNY:
Melissa Mark-Viverito is looking to get back into city public office.

The former City Council speaker announced Tuesday that she plans to run in next year's special election for public advocate. Mark-Viverito, who first announced her bid on "Mornings on 1," will kick off her campaign with an evening event at Borough of Manhattan Community College.

She has said she would hold city and state leaders accountable over the state of the city's transit system, ongoing problems at New York City Housing Authority developments and issues of inequality, as public advocate.

Blissville shelter changes hands; another "hotel" on the horizon

From The Real Deal:

Brooklyn investor Shulem Herman has gone to Queens for his latest purchase.

Herman has purchased a homeless shelter in Long Island City from Lam Group for $36.5 million, according to property records. He took out a roughly $23.2 million mortgage for the purchase from Sterling National Bank.

The 154-room building used to be a Fairfield Inn hotel and is located at 52-34 Van Dam Street.

Who knew owning a homeless shelter could be so lucrative? Actually, that's been apparent for years, so we'll end sarcasm right here.



From The Real Deal:

Another day, another Long Island City hotel from Sam Chang.

The developer filed permits with the city’s Department of Buildings on Monday for a 14-story hotel with 282 rooms. The project at 52-02 Van Dam Street would span about 82,000 square feet and replace a pair of industrial buildings.

This is the latest of many hotels Chang’s McSam Hotel Group is planning for the neighborhood. The company is also building a 324-key hotel nearby at 38-39 9th Street and a 142-key hotel at 38-04 11th Street.

Wow, it's certain that tourists will flock to a hotel that is hard to get to and sits amidst 3 homeless shelters. Unless there is some kind of hidden plan here. Hmm, what could McSam be up to? End sarcasm again.

You know, this neighborhood had so much potential. Instead the city is turning it into a slum. Well, this guy thinks it's great for some reason but everyone else sees the forest through the trees.

Where the most street homeless are

From RealtyHop:

As shown on the map, homeless encampments are mostly concentrated in Manhattan, with Midtown-Midtown South being the worst of all neighborhoods. The good news? So far, only 402 encampments have reported in the neighborhood, 201 fewer than 2017. West Village is another neighborhood that has seen more homeless encampments than others, with 275 reported in 2017 and 260 reported in 2018 as of October 31st, 2018. The number goes down as the neighborhoods get farther away from the city center. In Brooklyn, however, things seem to be worsening in Stuyvesant Heights, with 56 homeless encampments reported in 2017 and 130 reported in 2018. Other neighborhoods that have seen an increase in the number of encampments include East Williamsburg, Dumbo-Vinegar Hill-Downtown Brooklyn-Boerum Hill, and Prospect Heights.

So this study, using 311 call data regarding homeless encampments, seems to show that while Manhattan numbers are skyrocketing, Queens homeless numbers are on a steep decline. (They cut up and mashed together neighborhoods in a weird way, though.)

$226M Woodhaven/Cross Bay SBS route only saves riders a few minutes

From Forest Hills Post:

The Department of Transportation announced Tuesday that the Select Bus Service that links the Rockaways with Woodside–via Woodhaven and Cross Bay Boulevards–has decreased travel times for riders since its introduction last year.

Travel times for bus riders have improved by nearly 10 percent on the Q52/Q53 SBS route, which was rolled out amid controversy on Nov. 12, 2017. Meanwhile, travel times for all other modes of transportation along Woodhaven and Cross Bay Boulevards have stayed the same since the introduction of SBS, the agency said.

The DOT, as part of SBS, removed a travel lane along the boulevards for the sole use of buses, which critics say has increased congestion. Furthermore, there have been parking bans in sections of the corridor that many argue has hurt small businesses.

But the DOT says SBS has been a success since it was launched 12 months ago.

What's the longest you could possibly spend on this bus? An hour? We're talking less than 6 minutes you're saving by taking the SBS. In the meantime, it's bumper to bumper traffic for everyone else, despite the BS that DOT is peddling about travel times for other modes of transportation staying the same.

Great use of taxpayer money here.

Special treatment given to big de Blasio donors

From CBS 2:

Shocking video has surfaced, documenting the easy access achieved by a pair of donors to Mayor Bill de Blasio who reportedly used gifts and bribes to weasel their way into the very heart of the New York Police Department.

A photo taken at a dinner showing donors Jeremy Reichberg and Jona Rechnitz bracketing then-NYPD Chief of Department Philip Banks takes on a new whole new meaning in light of the astonishing dash cam video played out at Reichberg’s trial on charges of bribing police officers.

The video shows Reichberg and Rechnitz, who has already pleaded guilty and is testifying as a government witness, somehow gain access to the heavily protected underground garage at the department’s headquarters in lower Manhattan.

“I would expect that the chief, the PC, sent us a representative to walk us up to the private elevator,” Rechnitz said. “I expect nothing less.”

Banks, who has not been charged with any wrongdoing, did in fact send an escort who can be seen greeting the pair effusively. Jurors were also shown pictures and video of the pair wearing Santa Claus hats and driving a black Aston Martin to deliver Christmas presents to officers, but it was the unfettered access to police headquarters that’s riled police experts.

Construction damage forces small business to close on Black Friday

Animal Pantry on Cross Bay Blvd was hit with a vacate order this past Friday due to construction behind the building damaging their foundation.

Great timing! It's called Black Friday because small businesses are generally running "in the red" up until the day after Thanksgiving, when they make a bundle off holiday shoppers, which pushes them "into the black" on their balance sheets.

All to build another cookie cutter piece of crap. For shame.

The poor will still have trouble affording reduced fare MetroCards

From City Limits:

In June, after more than two years of campaigning by advocates, activists and grassroots groups, the City Council and Mayor Bill de Blasio announced they’d struck a budget deal: one that included funding for the Fair Fares program, which would provide half-priced MetroCards to New Yorkers living below the federal poverty level.

The initiative, which experts say could potentially benefit as many as 800,000 low-income New Yorkers, is set to roll out in January, though the city has yet to release a detailed plan for how it will operate. Eligibility criteria, how many people the program will serve during its initial rollout, and exactly how participants will obtain their discounted MetroCards are all factors still being worked out, according to a spokeswoman for the mayor’s office.

One detail that we do know, revealed at an MTA committee meeting last week, is that the half-priced fares will only apply to the purchase of weekly and monthly MetroCards. Pay-Per-Ride MetroCards, which users can purchase and load with any amount of money over $5.50, are exempt from the discount, at least initially—something city officials say will allow them to get the program launched on time.

This news was a disappointment to transit advocates who’d pushed for the passage of Fair Fares, who argue that the city’s most cash-strapped New Yorkers are not always able to afford the upfront costs of a weekly or monthly MetroCard, even at a discount. Under Fair Fares, a 30-day MetroCard would cost $60.50 while a 7-day would cost $16.

When is an attic not an attic?

What's this underdeveloped property with an older home and - gasp - a side yard doing taking up space in Queens? We need a hero to come and take care of this problem.

Not to worry, Middle Village has its own local overdevelopment superstars known as the Fabians. Small one family to be replaced with two 3-familys. I'll admit, these don't look quite as hideous as what I am used to from this development firm. However, the permits are for a 4-story building and this rendering doesn't seem to show that.

The 4th floor says "UPPER PORTION OF CLASS "A" DWELLING UNIT 276.5 SQ. FT. OPEN TO BELOW UNFLOORED AREA TO REMAIN PERMANENTLY"

What?

Might want to post the renewed permits, there, Bobby.

This looks legit. Naturally this was all self-certified and there were issues, including a stop work order.

Queens owners hold on to their multifamily buildings

From The Real Deal:

Queens has been at the forefront of New York City’s development boom, with major new megaprojects rising from Astoria to Flushing. And with Amazon’s official selection of Long Island City for half of its so-called HQ2, the appetite for large scale developments in Queens is likely to accelerate even further.

But one segment of the local market that has remained consistently slow is deals for multifamily buildings, where activity almost always lags behind the other boroughs. During the third quarter of the year, Queens saw just 11 deals across 14 buildings for $93.33 million, according to data from Ariel Property Advisors.

During the second quarter, the borough saw 18 deals across 25 buildings for about $283 million, and just 13 deals across 18 buildings for about $178 million during the first quarter. Throughout 2017, Queens saw 43 deals across 115 buildings worth $849 million, making it the only borough not to break the $1 billion mark in annual sales. These were the lowest number by borough in every instance and every category, with the sole exception of dollar volume during 2018’s second quarter (the Ariel reports examine every part of the city except Staten Island).

Michael Tortorici, executive vice president at Ariel, said Queens has had a slow multifamily market for as long as he has been analyzing the borough. He generally sees somewhere around 60 trades per year.

“The demand is there. The supply often isn’t,” he said, “and I think that fact is seen in the pricing, which is consistent and has been, compared to other parts of the city, also very competitive.”

Part of the reason for Queens’ slow multifamily market could be the relatively small amount of multifamily buildings it has compared to the other boroughs. Ariel identified just 3,371 tax lots in the borough that have one or more multifamily or mixed-use building on them with 10 or more units. This number was 6,057 in the Bronx, 7,361 in Brooklyn and 12,726 in Manhattan.

There is also more of a general reluctance among multifamily owners in Queens to sell their properties, given that they tend to be very secure investments, Tortorici said.

“Queens multifamily owners are very loyal to Queens and to their holdings, and many of them are very stable in value with appreciation,” he said. “They’re stable in terms of collections. The income growth is steady and consistent.”

Because of the stability, owners are more likely to commit to longterm holds and pass it on generationally, he said.

What a shame that the multifamily buildings aren't being traded back and forth! In the meantime, one- and two-family homes are torn down and replaced with crap on a regular basis.

NYCHA weaves a tangled web

From the NY Times:

Mikaila Bonaparte has spent her entire life under the roof of the New York City Housing Authority, the oldest and largest public housing system in the country, where as a toddler she nibbled on paint chips that flaked to the floor. In the summer of 2016, when she was not quite 3 years old, a test by her doctor showed she had lead in her blood at levels rarely seen in modern New York.

A retest two days later revealed an even higher level, one more commonly found in factory or construction workers and, in some cases, enough to cause irreversible brain damage.

Within two weeks, a city health inspector visited the two Brooklyn public housing apartments where Mikaila spent her time — her mother’s in the Tompkins Houses; her grandmother’s in the Gowanus Houses — to look for the source of the lead exposure, records show. The inspector, wielding a hand-held device that can detect lead through multiple layers of paint, found the dangerous heavy metal in both homes. The Health Department ordered the Housing Authority to fix the problems.

The discovery spurred the Housing Authority to action: It challenged the results.

Rather than remove or cover the lead, the Housing Authority dispatched its own inspector who used a different test, documents show. The agency insisted that however Mikaila was poisoned, there was no lead in her apartments.

Construction death in Brooklyn

From CBS 2:

It was a tragic day in Brooklyn, where a construction worker was fatally struck by falling construction material at a work site in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

Chopper 2 was over the emergency response at the six-story mixed use building project near the corner of Myrtle and Marcy Avenues just before noon.

It was a tragic day in Brooklyn, where a construction worker was fatally struck by falling construction material at a work site in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

Chopper 2 was over the emergency response at the six-story mixed use building project near the corner of Myrtle and Marcy Avenues just before noon.

Shalimar Diner closing forever on Sunday

From the Queens Chronicle:

After more than 40 years in Rego Park, the Shalimar Diner will close its doors for good on Sunday.

The Shalimar Diner, located at 63-68 Austin St., is the latest eating establishment to close in the borough. In recent years, the Scobee Diner in Little Neck, the Palace Diner in Flushing, the Future Diner in Fresh Meadows and the Flagship Diner in Briarwood have all gone out of business.

In July 2016, Shalimar owner Chris Karayiannis told the Chronicle “I don’t know how long I can last,” in response to the rising costs of running a diner.

One waitress said that the rent was raised and that the landlord offered a 20-year lease but a deal didn’t happen.

It’s a far cry from 1977, when The New York Times mentioned the Shalimar Diner in an article titled “Diners Strike It Rich.” Diners were growing in appeal to families and not just truckers and taxi drivers.

According to the article, “on weekends, hundreds of people form lines in the diners’ parking lots from Rego Park to Bayside to Douglaston.”

NYCDOT helps close diners, too.

Rest in peace, Senator Peralta

From the NY Post:

New York State Senator Jose Peralta died of an apparent heart attack late Wednesday night, friends and fellow lawmakers said. He was 47.

Peralta, a Democrat, represented a Queens district that included diverse neighborhoods such as Corona, Elmhurst, Jackson Heights and Woodside.

Read this as you wait for the feast

Below is the letter that former DOI Commissioner Mark Peters sent to the City Council about his dismissal by de Blasio.

STATEMENT FROM DOI COMMISSI... by on Scribd

Happy Thanksgiving from Queens Crap!

It's the day of the year when we give thanks for all we have. And no one has more than this guy. And he's about to get even more at our expense thanks to two other guys who he spun like records. I guess we should be thankful, though!

Not your routine stop work order

In the 12 years we've been at this (has it really been that long?) we've come across a number of SWOs posted on buildings. But the story behind this one at 64-00 Metropolitan Ave is like none ever profiled here before.

You can learn a new way to get an ECB violation every day around these parts.

And wait, there's more! The plot thickens...

There are a slew of complaints about this building, and they're interesting to read.