Results tagged “thebuildingsdepartment”

The Department of Buildings commissioner admitted her agency knew a Harlem building was in danger of collapse but somehow it got lost in the shuffle and collapsed on its own. On Tuesday, bricks fell off 102 East 124th Street, a vacant building, and a few hours later, the roof and top floor collapsed. Its neighboring building was compromised and authorities moved to demolish it, asking the MTA to suspend all train activity near by in fear the trains' vibrations would cause more problems.

Last month, scaffolding holding two window cleaners outside a 47-floor building on East 66th Street collapsed, leaving one of the cleaners dead and the other, his brother, with massive injuries. Now, the survivor's doctors and wife are talking about his "miraculous" recovery, as he's alert and talking - and may even be able to walk in a year.

Yesterday's gusting winds caused quite a bit of damage besides providing more winter chill. Building scaffolding was knocked over in many places, a tree pinned a man in NJ to the ground, and windows and/or debris fell from two Manhattan skyscrapers, hitting pedestrians. Winds were reported to be at least 40MPH, with gusts at 50MPH, yesterday (wind advisory was in effect until this morning at 4AM). The Buildings Department had asked property owners and construction...

The safety problems on one of the city's most prominent landmarks went unnoticed until a city Buildings Department manager gazed at Tweed while walking to his office on Chambers St. in lower Manhattan.

Continue reading "Tweed Courthouse - True to Form"

Seething over their many, ignored complaints about new construction at 808 Columbus Avenue, residents of Park West Village held a rally to demand an investigation. All 280 apartments at one Park West building, 784 Columbus, were evacuated when a retaining wall collapsed at the 808 site on Wednesday night. However, there were a number of calls to the Department of Buildings from 784 residents, complaining that the building was shaking as workers blasted in the 808 site.

The demolition of the former Deutsche Bank building next to Ground Zero has been halted after officials are still unable to determine how a several-foot-long section of pipe fell from the deconstruction site and crashed through the roof of a neighborhing firehouse, injuring two firefighters. The incident occurred yesterday morning and investigators are still wondering how a 15-foot section of steam pipe from the irreperably damaged office tower fell through the roof of the firehouse, and two men inside suffered minor injuries. It does seem puzzling, since the 40-story office tower's been enshrouded in black netting since shortly after the 9/11 attacks.

“The Buildings Department will review the contractor’s means and methods to ensure that public safety is upheld,” said Kate Lindquist, a spokeswoman for the department, which issued a stop-work order yesterday and cited a subcontractor at the site, the John Galt Corporation, for failure to “safeguard the public and property.” She said the company could be fined up to $5,000.

It's unclear how long the demolition will be delayed, but a spokesperson for the LMDC didn't think it would seriously affect project deadlines. The Deutsche Bank building's plan for dismantling was approved in September 2006. The LMDC posted an animation of the property's proposed detoxification in 2005. JP Morgan Chase plans to build a 50 story replacement once the building's down, after extracting financial concessions from the city. We got some video of anti-war images projected on the building's enshrouded facade back in March.

The Buildings Department has some idea of what caused a rigging from a towering crane at Third Avenue and 13th Street to fall on Friday. The Department of Buildings' initial findings say hydraulics failed. The Third Avenue sidewalk between 14th and 12th Streets only opened yesterday afternoon, after the damaged parts of the crane were removed. Here's the NY Times' account of how the crane was stabilized and the aftermath:

The crane was dangerously unbalanced, though. Cranes are designed to resist buckling and falling to the street, but the intricate system of weights and counterweights used to move material was severely damaged. That prompted workers to dismantle the entire crane on Friday evening and early yesterday and lower the pieces to the street.

Continue reading "One Word for Crane Accident: Hydraulics"

Those brothels in Queens just keep on popping up. Last night cops busted not one but two of them. Well, OK, it sounds like one was more of an illegal strip club but the Post calls 'em brothels so... The first one, Club Daydreams, at 146-16 Hillside Avenue in Jamaica was busted by the NYPD Vice Squad around 1 A.M. who arrested eight women for prostitution. The Buildings Department also got the joint for not having the required number of exits and for violating zoning laws by listing itself as a steak house on forms. The second, Club Kaula, at 143-08 94th Avenue was closed after two patrons were found with drugs, a knife and a stun gun. That's a whole lotta busted brothel for one night.

As the West Village is happy that the City Planning Commission wants to prevent high-rises from being built (well, the measure needs the City Counci's okay),and Gothamist can only suspect it's part pre-emptive strike against huge outdoor advertisements. For example, the Queens Tower Condos in Rego Park are the target of many complaints for putting up a huge lingerie ad outside one of the buildings. The Department of Buildings has issued violations to the condo's president, as the ad "went up without a permit and in a zoning district where they are prohibited." The Buildings Department says they are just "too big and too high." The ads, for Elle MacPherson's lingerie line, were supposed to be taken down in October anyway, says the ad's marketing director, who added, "You usually don't see posters like that in Queens. You see them in Times Square, so we thought it would be a perfect place to stand out and get a little exposure." That's so weird - we went to Queens to get away from Times Square. But then again, Queens was the only place in NYC with a Red Lobster for a while. Gothamist can only assume that Buildings Department fasttracked these violations in fear that drivers on the LIE would get into accidents.

For our Sunday dose of wall alarmism, Gothamist enjoyed the NY Times examination of 126 retaining walls with "cracks, bulges and leaks", because now we'll be walking the streets, wondering if the wall next to us will suddenly collapse. Most retaining walls are located in the Bronx and northern Manhattan, because they are the hilliest parts of the city, but you may now notice retaining walls wherever you go, like around the cemetary at Trinity Church downtown. The Buildings Department emphasized that retaining walls are the responsibility of owners, and that they only checked them when there are complaints. To which Gothamist says, in light of the Henry Hudson Parkway retaining wall collapse, please call 311. Oh, and while it's good that the Church of St. John the Divine at Amsterdam and West 110th Street recognizes its 18-foot high wall has problems, just putting a chain link fence in front of it doesn't make us feel that much more safe.

Yesterday afternoon, the roof of 103 Meserole Street in East Williamsburg collapsed on top of eleven workers who had been renovating the building. At first, area residents said it sounded like a huge explosion. The Buildings Department says that the owner had been given a permit for "vertical enlargement" - gutting the building for a new facade, replaced beams, and new windows - and the FDNY explained what happened: "Both side walls were being scaffolded and they were putting blocks up so they could raise the flooring, raise the roof of the building and enlarge the space. The block came loose, collapsing the scaffolding, trapping the workers underneath."Two of the workers were critically injured, but luckily there were no fatalities. The NY Times adds that there's been a history of "tension" between landlord and tenants, and that the building had been issued violations before, but none relating to the building soundness; the Buildings Department is still investigating. Yikes, this is the second building collapse in Brooklyn this month, and with last week's dirtslide, Gothamist wonders about building owners' and the Buildings Department's abilities to monitor the safety of city buildings and how effective they are with addressing problems.