Vacate Order on Washington and Myrtle
212 Ralph Avenue wasn’t the only four-story brick building to be vacated by the Department of Buildings in the last few days: 180 Washington Avenue, at the southwest corner of Myrtle Avenue in Clinton Hill, was closed up over the weekend account of the “imminently perilous” conditions. The American Red Cross was also nice enough…
212 Ralph Avenue wasn’t the only four-story brick building to be vacated by the Department of Buildings in the last few days: 180 Washington Avenue, at the southwest corner of Myrtle Avenue in Clinton Hill, was closed up over the weekend account of the “imminently perilous” conditions. The American Red Cross was also nice enough to leave a note for residents who may not have been able to find a couch to sleep on. GMAP
As a former tenant of this building, I can say that I am completely not surprised. It was only a matter of time, and in fact I was living there when the first citation in June 2009 was posted on our door. And it’s about time too. The building shook constantly, and there was always a very worrying creaking sound coming from one corner of my bedroom. While I feel sorry for the new tenants who have to deal with this situation, I’m glad the city is taking into its own hands what the landlord should have addressed years ago.
Gorgeous!! If you need someone to ride shotgun, do give a shout.
Quote:
Minard – DOB’s chief engineer is very experienced with historic buildings. He understands how they stand up from years of private practice at the go-to structural engineering firm for historic buildings in the city.
WBer 3:51 PM
My guess is that Minard knows very well who the DOB chief engineer is – and anyone else one ought to know in this business. What would be really funny is if Minard were the DOB chief engineer! haha :-))
Well, I am copying Minard’s suggestions for future reference.
Minard – DOB’s chief engineer is very experienced with historic buildings. He understands how they stand up from years of private practice at the go-to structural engineering firm for historic buildings in the city.
Has anyone even said anything about demolition? I didn’t see anything about this in BIS. What I did see is that DOB issued a series of violations beginning last June, and that the owner hasn’t done anything to correct – that seems to be why DOB went forward with the vacate. Given the tone of the past violations, DOB was pretty serious about the problem back then.
This is a very nice building, part of a very nice row. Hopefully it will be corrected, and nicely.
Sorry, obviously wrong link.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/36425605@N03/3772179335/in/photostream/
bfarwell…I have this one….
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/29/business/economy/29market.html
Okay, so I’ll cede a couple things:
If DOB inspectors are ordering the demolition of occupied buildings for no other reason than that they happened to have visual evidence of a crack that has been there for 90 years, that seems foolish.
If DOB inspectors are ordering the demolition of buildings which happen to have a bulge, but they don’t have a good reason (so it’s unrelated to the bulge posing an imminent danger), that also seems foolish.
…but, I dare say, those seem like unusual and superficially-true-if-at-all cases.
Just because something hasn’t happened yet, doesn’t mean it won’t happen. (in fact, the only way if COULD happen is if it hasn’t happened yet).
I agree that demolition is the least appealing remedy to any problem. I agree that remediation is vastly preferable for all parties concerned. I’m even willing to agree that remediation is possible in many more cases than those where it is actually attempted (though I’m not saying I know why this is the case. Perhaps it is more expensive for the owner and they’re not interested. Perhaps the DOB is scared of lawsuits from adjacent structures. Perhaps sunspots.)
However, I’m not willing to agree that DOB folks walk around pulling down buildings ‘for no reason’. Or that ‘it is a bit askew’ or ‘the loadbearing wall is experiencing structural failure and bulging out’ or ‘parts of the building are moving in different directions, causing cracks’ are somehow not possibly valid reasons.
(DIBs, mmmmm. delicious. You can see the auburn relations in there. My first car was a ’51 Chevy sedan, which is a cow compared to the Cord, but still really fun to drive. As long as it wasn’t raining; those vacuum-powered wipers sucked. so to speak.)
Arkady- they’re telling you that so you can take your proper place in a consumerist society and do your bit for the economy.
Agreed, Minard. Anyone know whether the vacate order is accompanied with a demolition schedule? What’s the BOB’s next move? If its to get engineers in there it would be nice if they could fast track it so that the tenants get answers sooner rather than later. I would suggest they lawyer up anyway. May have to get a TRO on short notice.