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.

Sidewalk shed bill has a hearing

From Crains:

Because it's much costlier to fix a façade than to maintain a shed that devours sidewalk space, blocks sunlight and hurts businesses, and no deadline to remove it, sheds have spread across the city. There are now 8,843—about 200 miles worth—and they pop up any time a building is built or repaired, as Crain's documented in a cover story last year.

Late last year City Councilman Ben Kallos sponsored a bill to stop the scourge and last week a hearing was finally held to discuss it.

His bill would compel landlords to remove sheds—which Kallos called "the house guest that never leaves"—if no work is done on the building for seven days, with exceptions for weather and other issues.

While officials from the de Blasio administration and real estate community agreed at the hearing that sheds are ugly, they insisted Kallos' bill could jeopardize public safety by forcing sheds to come down sooner than they should.

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.

Queens County Courthouse gets no respect

From the Daily News:

For over a decade, the sidewalk shedding around the Queens criminal courthouse has cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars — with no repair work being done to the building.

Queens District Attorney Richard Brown wrote a letter two years ago to the city's Department of Administrative Services (DCAS) requesting an answer as to why the structure was still surrounding the building.

“As a public servant, I am embarrassed and I can only imagine what phrases the public would use to describe the situation," Brown wrote.

Owners of buildings higher than six stories must comply with Local Law 11, which dates back to 1998, requiring an engineer to inspect the structures in order to determine necessary maintenance to protect the public.

Brown said that for more than 10 years his offices have looked like a construction site.

“We have endured more than enough of this eyesore. Repeatedly using this option, rather than making the necessary repairs to the buildings’ facade, is a waste of taxpayer money,” Brown told the Daily News.

The work required for the 61-year-old building is for minor repairs such as pointing, refastening of electrical conduits and repairing cracks, that as of this year have not been tended to, Brown said.

“Perhaps it is my outer-borough outlook, but I believe if this shedding surrounded City Hall or the courthouse at 60 Centre St. in Manhattan the result ... and timeline would be much different,” Brown said.

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.

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.

Some sidewalk sheds pose a hazard

From New York World:

Sidewalk sheds have become a fixture of New York City’s landscape, with the number of permits more than doubling since 1998 to nearly 10,000.

The sheds are mandated by the city whenever construction, remodeling or demolition is taking place and several private contractors specialize in building the structures.

But the city’s effort to ensure that the structures are safe and effective has faltered, a New York World investigation found.

Among the findings:

● A special Scaffold Safety Team, created in late 2007 by the Bloomberg administration to monitor construction scaffolds and sidewalks sheds, has seen its staff reduced from 14 field inspectors in 2008 to 9 in 2013.
● The number of violations issued for faulty sheds has plummeted, from 855 in 2009 to 337 in 2013.
● At least 39 pedestrians and construction workers have been injured since January 2011 in accidents involving sidewalk sheds

While no deaths have been recorded over the last four years, victims have suffered serious injuries, including concussions and electric shock.

In most cases reviewed by the World, the shed collapse occurred during the construction or removal of the shed, as the result of falling construction debris, or from high winds.

There are also instances when sidewalk sheds fail but no one happened to be walking under the shed at the time.

The World found a dozen cases between 2012 and 2013 when portions of a sidewalk shed collapsed without injury to pedestrians or workers.

For instance, on February 1, 2013, a sidewalk shed partially collapsed outside of the Hanson Place Central Methodist Church in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn.

The DOB issued a violation against the church for failing to maintain the shed, and the inspector noted that additional sections of the shed were in danger of collapsing.

RKO Keith's mystery sign

"Is NYC the Keith's real owner as suggested by this placard?" - The Flushing Phantom

Hmmm. The permit for the sidewalk shed was indeed applied for by HPD. But ownership still appears to be private as per ACRIS.

Look out below!

From DNA Info:

After chunks of ice began plummeting from One World Trade Center last week, the Port Authority is building a protective shed to keep pedestrians safe.

The shed will cover the area outside the World Trade Center PATH station entrance on Vesey Street, which has been shut down during morning rush hour twice in the past week because of the falling ice. Last Friday, the Port Authority was forced to temporarily halt PATH service to the station altogether, because of the bottleneck of commuters all trying to leave through the one remaining open exit.

Falling ice also shuttered the Vesey Street entrance Tuesday morning.

Port Authority spokesman Anthony Hayes said the agency was building the shed “to ensure public safety against the ice fall.”

Workers were busy Wednesday afternoon constructing the metal and wood barrier in the blustery cold.

When asked whether the cover would be enough to protect against the fall of ice blocks, a worker, who asked that his name not be used, replied: “Well, look, you never know where the wind blows.”

Dromm declares victory vs. sidewalk shed

From the Times Ledger:

In response to a community outcry and violations from the city Environmental Control Board, a Trade Fair supermarket on 75th Street in Jackson Heights removed its sidewalk enclosure Saturday, City Councilman Daniel Dromm (D-Jackson Heights) said.

The councilman and community members had held a protest against the sidewalk enclosure earlier this year, saying the shed-like structure was illegal and a fire hazard.

The stores often set up sidewalk enclosures outside their storefronts where fruit and soda are displayed. Residents who live near one of the Jackson Heights locations, at 75-07 37th Ave., contended the enclosure was a fire hazard and that it was unfair that the company could take up so much of the sidewalk without paying fees like restaurants that operate sidewalk cafes.

The 37th Avenue and 75th Street store also received a partial vacate order from the city Department of Buildings in August 2011. The DOB said the extension was illegal, not constructed correctly and a potential hazard. The city Environmental Control Board also cited the chain with a violation when it did not take the enclosure down.

Sidewalk shed competition is a crock

From Restless:

...when I visited the Urban Shed website, I find out it's just another bogus Bloomberg program to paint a happy face on the unbridled development needed to complete the conversion of our chaotic & quirky Naked City into the sexless Corporate Suburban City required by his actual constituency: the Masterds* of the Universe whose bloated, legalized-theft incomes make all this sickness possible, and the greedy developers who build condos for the Masterds and their legions of wannabe Masterds (like the corporate tools who binge crawl all over the LES, East Village, and soon Williamsburg, doing their best to eject their soul with their stomach contents and thus attain Masterdhood).

Not only is there no need for new scaffolding & sheds, but we get the insult of the Urban Shed website, a detailed propaganda exercise that demonstrates just how much of Bloomberg's talent for organization is wasted on flavoring meant to distract from lack of nutrition. We are supposed to buy the idea that a competition jury headed by Dept. of Building officials, in a competition supported by the players who've brought us all these years of Masterdization, will somehow come up with something good for the city.

* Excuse me, I just read about Quentin Tarantino's new movie "Inglourious Basterds"

Modernizing the sidewalk shed

From the NY Times:

...as the world has moved on, the sidewalk shed — the ubiquitous wooden and steel contraptions outside construction sites that symbolize the constant rejuvenation of New York — has largely been unchanged since the 1960s: erector-style frameworks with flat, flappy roofs that residents have used as rain shelters, bike racks and even chin-up apparatus. What little progress there has been has all been in the lighting: fluorescent has gradually replaced incandescent.

So in an attempt to drag the sidewalk shed into the 21st century, the city’s Department of Buildings, together with the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects and other groups, is holding a worldwide design contest called UrbanShed, which is calling for innovative reinterpretation of a classic piece of New York’s streetscape. (In other cities, the sidewalk shed, also known as a sidewalk bridge, is called a “New York-style shed.”)

The competition will be officially announced on Thursday. Submissions, due Oct. 2, will be evaluated by a panel of nine judges for cost, functionality and aesthetics. Three finalists will be winnowed down to a single winner to be announced in December.