![]() Spacious, beamed-and-molded Classic 6 with its sixteen windows, in which we’ve But only because I made mention of West Nile Scaffold guys-to get that thing turned over and emptied. It took five different players-from super to handyman to landlord to With rainwater a few months ago, thereby becoming a splendid breeding facilityįor mosquitos just outside our bedroom windows? The workers themselves wear masks.) And what about the long, open trough that filled If so, how is the dust affecting the rest of us? (We and the other tenants, I mean. Our pet hamster recently died of a cancer the vet had never seen before. Have replaced our indoor trees several times, and they're expensive), but Is our indoor greenery continually dying from the possibly toxic dust (we As it turned out, Irene was a washout, and we To ask about this, but they don’t work on Saturdays. I called management the day before the storm Removed or tied down? One would think so,Ĭonsidering wind-tossed shovels vs. Hurricane Irene threatened to throttle us, it occurred to me that our outdoor dilemma Tweezers may or may not one day apply themselves. This past April, the platform permit was renewed for a sixth year-andĪccessorized by a vertical scaffold with blue veiling reaching up to theįirst of the decorative balconies to which the craftsmen with their eyebrow The previous November-they didn’t stay long. Told me that the owners have ”been given a lot of violations.”įew weeks later, she told me that the Buildings Department has “no authority toĪlthough the workmen returned the very next day-after being absent since In January 2010, a community liaison for the Department of Buildings “Usually the problem is that the building owner doesn't know what he's The landlord, afraid to withhold the rent, woefully without recourse. Isn’t there a schedule for theseĭeadline? Who’s benefitting? Surely not the tenants-afraid to antagonize We know that platforms sprout up all over the city-but for weeks īeen born in this time, and neighbors buried.Įarthquakes and blizzards have done their jobs and left. Realtor and two real-estate lawyers, it’s legal to renew a platform. And as they strut around out there, mere feetįrom us at our computers and stoves, they do, yes they do, look in.Īccording to our brusque young managing agent, to Tina Somebody in ourĬouncilwoman’s office, to a lawyer in Mike Bloomberg’s bullpen, to a Corcoran They shout down to a guy in a truck, up to aĪnd toss their empty coffee cups to the scaffold floor. Platform before us continues to serve as repository for their tools and debris. The point anyway since dust still fills the air?Ĭurrently seem to be doing something at the rear of the building. Washed in five years because 1) we can’t get out on the platform and 2) what’s Nor could we anyway, since our windows haven’t been Need an umbrella?) or the sidewalk below (so we may toss a key to our husband, ![]() ![]() ![]() Most obvious victims, but others in the building are demoralized, too.)īecause of the fence that imprisons us, we cannot see the street (do we Its nasty fence has defaced our building and diminished our outlook, in every For five years, this filthy platform with Yelled a thug into the phone, before slamming it down. Next, I called the contractor's office-anonymously,įrom one of the last remaining phone booths in New York-to ask when the job Did an inspector ever come? Nobody told me.) Me to file a complaint, after which, she said, an inspector would be sent ![]() I called 311 and was at last connected to Jennifer Somebody in the Of “fire laws” I was told), we were vulnerable to any creep who might want toĬlimb aboard our wooden deck-where he’d be perfectly concealed from view-and With no barbed wire atop the fence (because Introduced to a new form of urban claustrophobia.Īway went all of our view, as well as our privacy and our security. Since our apartment is on the corner, we were now entirely engirdled-and In May 2009, additional planking went up on the avenue side of theīuilding. Of the pointing must have been done, since they scraped at something once in a And when they did, they were eye-level to our apartment, where I work. And what of the workers? What workers? They rarely showed up. Scaffold (aka platform, shed, or bridge) would be the staging area. In came the bricks and shovels, pipes and tarps, buckets andīrooms-deposited right outside the windows of our apartment. Litigation by pedestrians, tenants were told only that the situation wouldīe fixed and "pointing" done to the facade. Whether it went up to protect pedestrians or the landlord from Side of the building at the second floor, where all such structures seem to Something fell from on high to the sidewalk (causing no injury, as far as I know), a scaffold and high wood fence immediately went up on one Occupies a corner on the Upper West Side. We live on the second floor of a gracious pre-war rental building that ![]()
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