Frustrated Tenants Hold Mock Anniversary For Upper West Side Building's 15-Year-Old Scaffolding
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Tenants of a building on the Upper West Side held a mock anniversary for extended scaffolding that's plagued their building for more than 15 years.
A sidewalk shed was first put up at 51 West 86th Street in 2006, but it's remained there ever since.
Weinreb Management, the building's landlord, replaced the shed and added new netting over the windows of all 16 stories last year.
Saturday, frustrated residents marked the occasion and called on Weinreb to do the city-required repairs instead of keeping the shed up and paying fines.
Tenants found 10 of Weinreb's 11 buildings have sidewalk sheds.
Elected officials marked the occasion with them. Councilman Ben Kallos has tried for years to pass legislation that would make the city do necessary repairs and bill the owners.
"Please don't let the irony get lost. This isn't actually a celebration. A lot of us are wearing black because we are mourning the loss of light we lost for a year," Kallos said.
CBS2 reached out to Weinreb for comment, but we have not heard back.
"The owners of these properties have a legal responsibility to fix their buildings and remediate all of the unsafe façade conditions. Until those repairs are made, the sidewalk sheds must stay in place to prevent debris from falling on to building residents and their neighbors - the safety of our fellow New Yorkers is the priority here. These property owners should know that their continued inaction will be met with aggressive enforcement and even higher penalties from DOB until repairs are made," a spokesman for the Department of Buildings said.
The Department of Buildings said the landlord accumulated more than $100,000 in penalties for failing to make repairs on the façade. It also said the company has been fined hundreds of thousands of dollars for failing to fix at least 10 other buildings.
