While Councilman Bill de Blasio’s office says it distributed more than 300 fliers informing people that asbestos was being removed at a warehouse that’ll be demolished in order to make way for the large Public Place development, some nearby residents say they were in the dark about the potentially hazardous procedure. “I live at 204 Huntington Street, the apartment complex directly opposite the warehouse and I never received anything in the mail nor was anything posted on our building’s board (we have A LOT of kids in our building and had a notice been sent or left, I or one of the many parents in the building would have posted it immediately both in the building and on our parents’ Yahoo board),” one resident told us yesterday. “This warehouse is directly across the street from a large public park yet there are no signs in the park warning parents about what is going on.” A spokesperson for Councilman de Blasio’s office said yesterday that asbestos removal at the warehouse “is done,” and that “we spoke to the air quality monitoring company, and no asbestos entered the air in or around the site.” Gowanus Lounge covered some neighbors’ unease over lack of notification about the removal, which was occurring last week. A person who is a member of Community Board 6′s Environment and Public Safety Committe wrote the following to GL: “Last week they removed 125,000 square feet of asbestos contaminated roofing in the open air with no DOB permits and no community awareness. As a nearby resident with a small child I feel at risk.”
Confusion Over Public Place Asbestos Removal [Gowanus Lounge] GMAP